Issue 1 does not “protect our constitution;” it does the opposite.
Jennifer Ginder is a writing consultant, wife and mother of two college-aged daughters in Loveland, Ohio.
by Jennifer Ginder
I voted no last week on Issue 1 because it would end simple majority rule, making my vote matter less.
The language on the actual ballot is confusing, so it’s important to know the facts. Issue 1 would make it harder for citizen groups to change the Ohio Constitution by raising the percentage of people who have to vote “yes” to future proposed amendments from 50% +1 (majority) to 60% (super majority). It would also require that petition signatures be obtained from all of Ohio’s 88 counties rather than the current 44. This means a single county without enough signatures could kill an entire initiative. Issue 1 also eliminates the 10-day “cure” period, during which amendment campaigns can collect additional signatures if needed due to invalid signatures being tossed out.
The “Vote Yes” campaign rhetoric is misleading and designed to divide and create fear. While proponents initially insisted Issue 1 was only about protecting the integrity of the constitution, they now say the quiet part out loud: they want to stop the popular reproductive rights amendment from passing.
So, Issue 1 is designed to protect the Ohio Constitution from the will of Ohio voters.
● Issue 1 does not “protect our constitution;” it does the opposite. The campaign itself is funded by an Illinois billionaire and supported by a handful of powerful interest groups. Issue 1’s onerous requirements would make it nearly impossible for citizen groups to get an amendment on the ballot and passed. This would invite more – not less – influence by wealthy, out-of-state interests because they will be the only forces that can afford to participate in the process. The current citizen-led amendment process is ambitious and comprehensive.
● Rather than wait for the general election in November, where we typically vote on important, statewide questions, we are having a special election on August 8 for this proposal only. Lawmakers voted for this even though it will cost taxpayers $20 million, and even though they passed a law last December prohibiting special elections in August.
● Some say the constitution has been amended too many times already. But most of those changes were initiated by the legislature, not citizen groups. Over the last 111 years, only 19 of 71 citizen-initiated amendments have been adopted.
● Opposition to Issue 1 is widespread and bipartisan. It includes all of Ohio’s living former governors and five attorneys general, mayors and local leaders, as well as more than 200 hundred organizations.
Issue 1 is not about reproductive rights or any other, single issue. It’s about control, and would effectively eliminate citizen-led amendments in Ohio, regardless of their objective. When legislators are not responsive on issues important to us – like school funding, responsible gun ownership, minimum wage, or gerrymandering – we will have no recourse if Issue 1 passes. No checks and balances. Please join me in voting no on Issue 1.
An abortion rights amendment proposed for the Ohio Constitution was certified on Tuesday to go forward for consideration by voters in November as nearly 500,000 signatures in support were verified by the Secretary of State’s office.
In a letter to the campaign that collected signatures to put the ballot measure to Ohioans this year, Secretary of State Frank LaRose said 495,938 valid signatures were recorded, and a total of 55 counties fulfilled the percentage requirements for verification.
“Therefore, in the absence of judicial direction to the contrary, I will direct the boards of election to place the proposed amendment on the November 7, 2023, general election ballot,” LaRose wrote.
When advocates turned their boxes of signatures in to the secretary of state’s office on the July 5 deadline, they reported more than 700,000 signatures were submitted to be verified statewide.
Despite the lower number, the final tally is well above Ohio’s legal requirements to put an amendment proposal on the ballot.
Based on current law, abortion rights advocates needed to collect 413,487 signatures in 44 of 88 counties, a number based on election results from the last governor’s race.
Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights (OURR), a coalition of groups supporting the the codification of abortion rights in the state constitution, celebrated the news, but also set their sights on another hurdle at the ballot: Issue 1, hitting voters next month in the August 8 primary.
Issue 1 would make it harder for Ohio voters to amend the constitution by raising the threshold from a simple majority to 60%. If passed, Issue 1 would require the abortion ballot measure to meet that threshold.
It would also require proposals made after January 1, 2024, to meet signature requirements in all 88 counties instead of the current requirement of 44 counties.
“Now that the petition drive is complete, we’re eager to continue the campaign to enshrine those rights in Ohio’s constitution and ensure that Ohioans will never again be subject to draconian reproductive health care policies imposed by extremists,” wrote Lauren Blauvelt and Dr. Lauren Beene, executive committee members for the OURR, in a statement.
“This is a major step for Ohio, but it’s bigger than just one state,” said Kimberly Inez McGuire, executive director for Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity. “This is about reversing the tide of abortion bans and securing a better future for us all.”
GOP leaders including LaRose have admitted Issue 1 supporters are motivated by their desire to stop the abortion rights amendment.
The campaign standing in opposition to the abortion amendment, Protect Women Ohio, and anti-abortion lobby Ohio Right to Life, decried the new development, pushing ahead with their efforts to block the amendment from passage.
Peter Range, CEO of Ohio Right to Life, called the amendment “anti-life,” and said it is “even more imperative that every pro-life Ohioan votes yes on Issue 1 this August to ensure that our constitution, our preborn and our families are protected,” according to a statement sent by the group.
Protect Women Ohio said they have spent “an initial” $8 million on TV, radio and digital ads in support of Issue 1, and against the November abortion amendment.
With the amendment now allowed to go to the ballot, the Ohio Ballot Board chaired by LaRose will draft the language voters will read about the measure on their ballots.
Recent polls show 57.6% of Ohioans support the abortion rights amendment, while 32.4% oppose it and 10% are undecided. On the Aug. 8 Issue 1 effort to change the threshold for passage of amendments from 50% to 60%, another recent poll showed 57.2% of Ohioans oppose Issue 1, while 26% support it, and 17% are undecided.
SUSAN TEBBEN
Susan Tebben is an award-winning journalist with a decade of experience covering Ohio news, including courts and crime, Appalachian social issues, government, education, diversity and culture. She has worked for The Newark Advocate, The Glasgow (KY) Daily Times, The Athens Messenger, and WOUB Public Media. She has also had work featured on National Public Radio.
Two trucks loaded with more than 400 boxes rolled into the Ohio Secretary of State’s Office Wednesday. In those boxes were 710,000 signatures abortions rights advocates say prove they have the support they need to bring a ballot measure asking voters to put abortion care in the Ohio Constitution.
“Those (402) boxes are filled with hope, and love, and freedom of bodily autonomy … of being able to say ‘we decide what happens to us,’” said Kellie Copeland, executive director of Pro-Choice Ohio.
In the last 12 weeks, advocates from groups including Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom and Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights have gone to farmer’s markets, held drive-through signing events, and reached across the state to collect the nearly 414,000 signatures required of them to place a measure on an Ohio voting ballot. Signature-gatherers collect far more than that minimum in an attempt to make sure enough signatures are correct and valid to meet the threshold.
COLUMBUS, Ohio — JULY 05: Field staffer for Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights, Carlos Ortiz unloads the first of 402 boxes of petitions with over 700,000 signatures being delivered to Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, July 5, 2023, at the loading dock of the Office of the Ohio Secretary of State, downtown Columbus, Ohio. (Photo by Graham Stokes for Ohio Capital Journal. Republish photo only with original article.)
Bill Wood was one of many collecting signatures, and he said he was overwhelmed by the support he saw the past three months.
“What amazed me is that even late in this process, there were people who were coming up to us and saying, ‘I have been looking forward to signing this, thank you for being here,’” Wood said. “The number of thank-you’s and compliments and wonderful support that we got from people at every stage was amazing.”
As part of the Westerville Progressive Alliance, he said he has participated in many signature drives and campaigns over the years.
“I will tell you when we brought this to our people, we have never seen an outpouring of interest and commitment like we’ve seen this year,” Wood said.
He said the Westerville group alone collected 9,000 signatures.
The measure would allow abortion in the state via an amendment to the Ohio Constitution, that states “every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on contraception, fertility treatment, continuing one’s own pregnancy, miscarriage care and abortion.”
“Ultimately, this is about giving my patients, our patients, our friends, our families, their power back,” said Dr. Marcela Azevedo, co-founder of OPRR.
If approved, the amendment would bar the state from doing anything to “directly or indirectly burden, penalize, prohibit, interfere with, or discriminate against either an individual’s voluntary exercise of this right or a person or entity that assists an individual exercising this right, unless the state demonstrates that it is using the least restrictive means to advance the individual’s health in accordance with widely accepted and evidence-based standards of care,” according to the ballot language certified by the Ohio Ballot Board.
Abortion can, however, be prohibited “after fetal viability,” defined in the proposed amendment as “the point in pregnancy when, in the professional judgment of the pregnant patient’s treating physician, the fetus has a significant likelihood of survival outside the uterus with reasonable measures.”
Pro-abortion rights groups say signatures were collected in every Ohio county, something that may come in handy with another constitutional amendment, Issue 1, on the ballot in August that would require 60% of Ohio voters to approve of a measure, and require signatures to come from all 88 counties, rather than just the 44 of 88 required in current law.
Now, the Secretary of State’s Office will have until July 25 to verify the signatures and determine whether the measure has enough valid Ohio voter support to move forward.
If the number falls short of the required amount, advocates have 10 days to file a supplementary petition with more signatures, which must be from registered Ohio voters who didn’t sign the previous petition.
The groups working to get the measure on the ballot estimate the campaign to do it may cost approximately $35 million.
A spokesperson for Secretary of State Frank LaRose did not respond to requests for comment.
SUSAN TEBBEN
Susan Tebben is an award-winning journalist with a decade of experience covering Ohio news, including courts and crime, Appalachian social issues, government, education, diversity and culture. She has worked for The Newark Advocate, The Glasgow (KY) Daily Times, The Athens Messenger, and WOUB Public Media. She has also had work featured on National Public Radio.
Less than two weeks until the deadline, Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights is saying abortion right advocates will get the signatures needed to put a measure on the November ballot that would enshrine abortion rights in the Ohio Constitution.
Abortion advocates attempting to get the amendment on the ballot need to collect 413,000 signatures by July 5.
“The signature gathering effort has been going very well and we are on track to be successful,” Dr. Lauren Beene, OPRR co-founder and general pediatrician in Northeast Ohio, said Thursday during a media call. “We will have reached our goals to be able to submit before the deadline coming up in July.”
OPRR said they were unable to quantify how many signatures have been gathered so far because the number constantly changes.
“We’re actually in the verification and counting phase right now,” Beene said.
This comes as the one-year anniversary of the Dobbs decision nears, which overturned Roe v. Wade and gave states the power to regulate abortion access. OPRR, which formed after the Dobbs decision, has grown to more than 4,000 individual healthcare members.
Abortion is currently legal in Ohio up to 21 weeks as the six-week abortion ban is held up in court.
Issue 1
Before the November election, abortion advocates first must look to the Aug. 8 special election when Ohioans will vote on Issue 1, which would raise the threshold for a constitutional amendment to pass from a simple majority of 50% plus one to 60%.
“Issue 1 is obviously extremely important to us,” OPRR co-founder and pulmonologist Dr. Marcela Azevedo said. It is targeted towards our issue. … We are pretty aware that this is just another desperate attempt to thwart the will of voters with a goal of ending majority rule and transferring the power from the people to politicians and lobbyists in Columbus. This constitutional amendment is just another ploy.”
“Living under a time period where you’re doing the right thing for patients and it’s illegal was not something I would have thought it would have experienced in my career,” said Dr. Amy Burkett, a board-certified OB/GYN in northeast Ohio and OPRR member. “Doing the right thing was not supported by my state legislature.”
That’s how the constitutional amendment was born.
“Our solution to the ambiguity and confusing nature of the poorly written heartbeat ban is our constitutional amendment right,” Beene said. “What we are putting forth what people have been coming out of the woodwork to sign.”
She said the decision for someone to get an abortion should be between them and their doctor.
“You have to make sure what’s most important is that when our patients need access to care, that access to care is available and available immediately,” Beene said.
OPRR members said it’s tough to quantify how many people were referred out of state by Ohio doctors while the six-week ban was in place, but said it’s not always possible for patients to go out of state.
“That’s a huge burden to patients to have to go somewhere else for the care that’s considered evidence based health care,” Burkett said. “They need funds for travel. If it’s overnight they’re missing more work, they may need childcare.”
Megan Henry is a reporter for the Ohio Capital Journal and has spent the last five years reporting on various topics including education, healthcare, business and crime at The Columbus Dispatch, part of the USA Today Network.
COLUMBUS, Ohio — MAY 31: Senate President Matt Huffman, R-Lima (left), talks to Senate Majority Floor Leader Rob McColley, R-Napoleon, after the Ohio Senate session, May 31, 2023, at the Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio. (Photo by Graham Stokes for Ohio Capital Journal. Republish photo only with original story.)
By far the most burdensome part of collecting signatures for citizens to amend the Ohio Constitution is the current requirement that they be gathered in 44 out of our state’s 88 counties.
Organizers typically try to gather double the number of signatures they need to get a proposal on the ballot, because so many things can go wrong and they need that much of a buffer to ensure they have enough valid and accepted signatures to get a proposal through. It’s a slog, requiring a tremendous amount of time, money, resources, volunteers, and dedicated effort for Ohio citizen groups to fulfill. And that’s fair.
But Ohio Republicans moving the goal posts from 44 counties to 88 counties, as they propose to do with State Issue 1 on the ballot Aug. 8, would effectively destroy the ability of grassroots Ohio citizen groups to succeed in getting proposed amendments on the ballot ever again. The only groups that would have even a remote shot of success would be the most wealthy and powerful special interest groups imaginable.
Ohio’s unconstitutionally gerrymandered, extremist Republican supermajority in the Ohio Statehouse is the first legislature in Ohio history to try to roll back the constitutional power of Ohio voters, proposing with State Issue 1 to destroy majority voter authority and raise the threshold for passing amendments to 60%.
Ohio voters have had a majority say over the Ohio Constitution since 1851, and the power to bring citizen ballot initiatives since 1912. Now Ohio Republicans want to eliminate the last possible avenue of accountability for voters against our corrupt, out-of-control legislature.
Republican leaders have admitted in private and in public that their effort is really aimed to stop an abortion rights amendment slated for the November ballot, and to stop voters from any effort toward further anti-gerrymandering reform.
After months of denying that the attempt to roll back majority voter authority and enshrine 41% minority rule over our constitution was tied to abortion, Ohio’s two-faced Secretary of State Frank LaRose was recorded telling Seneca County Republicans this is “100% about keeping a radical pro-abortion amendment out of our constitution.”
LaRose has used his position as our state’s chief elections official to write the most manipulative ballot language possible for the proposal, once again violating the Ohio Constitution as he did when he ignored a bipartisan Ohio Supreme Court, the voters, and the rule of law, to force through unconstitutionally gerrymandered maps.
Ballot language is constitutionally mandated to be both neutral and accurate. State Issue 1 as written for the ballot by LaRose fails in both regards. In trying to defend the language, which is now the subject of a lawsuit, the state openly admits that it is inaccurate, but claims that’s not a “material defect.”
The misleading ballot language LaRose and Ohio Republicans are forcing Ohio voters to consider 1.) Fails to state clearly the current process and standards, and how exactly they would change by comparison under the amendment, 2.) Uses weighted language about “elevating” the standards instead of neutral language about raising the threshold for passage from 50% to 60%, and 3.) Inaccurately describes the signature requirement as needing at least 5% of eligible voters in each county, instead of the truthful and accurate 5% of the ballots cast in each county during the most recent election for governor.
Frank LaRose and Matt Huffman are using their elected positions of public trust to deploy every dirty trick in the book against Ohio voters to try to get us to strip ourselves of power and kneel down in subservience to their wanton extremism and corruption.
But the real kicker is that they plan on spending $6 million in TV ads — with financial backing of an extremist out-of-state billionaire — to try to convince Ohio voters this is about protecting our constitution from out-of-state special interests, when what the amendment would actually do is hand over all keys of power to the most wealthy and extreme special interests.
This brings us back to the change from 44 counties to 88 for signature gathering and the amendment’s elimination of a “cure period” after signatures have been turned in where organizers can correct things like wrong addresses listed on petitions.
“Requiring potentially hundreds of thousands of more signatures is bad enough,” the ACLU of Ohio’s Gary Daniels told House lawmakers in testimony against the proposal. “Eliminating the cure period in a state where many often move residences and are unnecessarily purged from voting rolls is even worse. The switch from 44 to 88 counties guarantees that the only campaigns that will qualify for the ballot are the most extremely rich ones.”
As we’ve seen in scandal after scandal — whether it’s payday lenders, corrupt charter schools, FirstEnergy bribing lawmakers and regulators for a billion-dollar bailout, or an Illinois billionaire trying to rewrite more than 100 years of Ohio Constitutional voter powers — our gerrymandered Statehouse is captured by corrupt, big money special interests.
By enshrining 41% minority rule, eliminating the signature gathering grace period, and mandating the near-impossible task of gathering thousands of signatures from every single Ohio county, State Issue 1 would guarantee that the only people who have influence on Ohio government are the most wealthy special interests and the corrupt Ohio politicians who keep selling out Ohioans, our state, and our future for pennies on the dollar.
DAVID DEWITT
OCJ Editor-in-Chief and Columnist David DeWitt has been covering government, politics, and policy in Ohio since 2007, including education, health care, crime and courts, poverty, state and local government, business, labor, energy, environment, and social issues. He has worked for the National Journal, The New York Observer, The Athens NEWS, and Plunderbund.com. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Ohio University’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism and is a board member of the E.W. Scripps Society of Alumni and Friends. He can be found on Twitter @DC_DeWitt
In order to understand the bad faith of the Republican arguments for attacking Ohio voters and asking us to enshrine 41% minority rule over our Ohio Constitution, voters need to understand the power dynamics at play when it comes to initiated statutes versus amendments to the Ohio Constitution.
In Ohio, citizens have two options for proposing changes through a ballot initiative: They can offer a statute, which changes law under Ohio Revised Code, or a constitutional amendment, which amends the Ohio Constitution.
Time and again we hear gerrymandered Ohio Republican lawmakers making some variation on their argument that the constitution is our “foundational document” and that if voters want a change, they should attempt an initiated statute to change the law, instead of adding an amendment to the Ohio Constitution.
Here’s what they want citizens to forget: Ohio law offers no protection for a newly passed statute. Lawmakers can immediately repeal or modify whatever changes voters approve.
This means that well-meaning citizens of Ohio could raise money, spend countless hours gathering signatures, put in enormous volunteer time, talk to their friends and neighbors, knock on doors, and generally work themselves to the bone to get a statute initiative on the ballot and passed, and then our unconstitutionally gerrymandered supermajority Republican legislature could repeal it the next day.
Some states have provisions to protect from this situation. If a citizen-initiated statute passes, the General Assembly is not allowed to just overturn it, sometimes for a given number of years, or they must reach an extremely high bar to do so. Ohio does not have this. That is a huge difference.
The fact that there is no such protection for citizen-initiated statutes in Ohio, combined with the fact that our Statehouse is unconstitutionally gerrymandered for unrepresentative Republican supermajorities in both chambers, means that it would be foolish for any citizen group working on an issue that our misrepresentative legislature refuses to address to spend all that time and effort passing a statute just to be kicked in the teeth by that same misrepresentative legislature.
Over the years as a newspaper reporter in Athens, I would ask people bringing, for instance, initiatives for the legalization of medicinal cannabis, why they were going for a constitutional amendment and not a statute. The answer was always the same: Because the Statehouse would just override it. Why spend all that time and money on something that they will just override?
When you understand this, you understand why groups bring amendments instead of statutes. This also reveals the wildly condescending deceit of these Ohio Republicans attacking 175 years of Ohio majority voter authority over our constitution.
Presumably, they understand these dynamics, too. And yet, they shriek and wail about all these groups they say are trying to write law into the constitution instead of just bringing statutes.
The simplest, easiest way to incentivize groups to put forward citizen-initiated statutes instead of amendments would be for them to create some kind of protection for those statutes from being overturned by the legislature.
Instead of this type of moderate, reasonable change that would alleviate the concerns Ohio Republicans claim that they have, they are going for Ohio voters’ throats.
We all know — and they have made clear in private and in public — that their effort is really aimed to stop an abortion rights amendment slated for the November ballot, and to stop voters from any effort toward further anti-gerrymandering reform.
That gerrymandering piece of the puzzle is also what makes their arguments so offensively disingenuous.
Ohio Republicans would not have had the votes to bring this $20 million, Aug. 8 special election if they hadn’t ignored the Ohio Constitution by forcing Ohioans in 2022 to vote under district maps declared unconstitutional by a bipartisan Ohio Supreme Court five times.
In doing so, they flagrantly violated the will of Ohio voters who passed anti-gerrymandering reform for Statehouse districts in 2015 with more than 71% of the vote.
Them now claiming the mantle of “protecting the Ohio Constitution” is ridiculous on its face. They have shown repeatedly they don’t give a damn about the integrity of the Ohio Constitution. They have flagrantly violated the Ohio Constitution, the rule of law, the orders of the Ohio Supreme Court, and the will of Ohio voters, with staggering contempt.
This is Lucy asking Charlie Brown to try to kick the football just one more time. I can only conclude they are either themselves just not very smart, or they’re so deeply cynical that they think Ohioans are profoundly stupid. Probably a mixture of both, depending on the lawmaker.
Even if you wanted to have a good faith discussion on citizen initiatives and the Ohio Constitution, you would have to meet a couple premises off the bat: You would have to have a legitimate and representative legislature that isn’t gerrymandered, and you would have to have some sort of enforceable protection for citizen-initiated statutes. Ohio has neither.
Are some things such as marijuana or casino laws better off in Ohio Revised Code? Probably. But Ohio Republicans rigging the game at every step of the process has rendered that discussion moot. Constitutional amendments are the only effective tool of direct power Ohio citizens have left.
Other issues such as civil and human rights stand wholly appropriate to the Ohio Constitution, firmly out of the manipulative reach of corrupt, unscrupulous lawmakers.
So that remains the primary question for Ohio voters: Should a 41% minority, alongside a rigged, extremist legislature acting on behalf of radical special interests, have authority over our most fundamental human and civil rights? Voters ought to think wisely.
_______________________________
DAVID DEWITT
OCJ Editor-in-Chief and Columnist David DeWitt has been covering government, politics, and policy in Ohio since 2007, including education, health care, crime and courts, poverty, state and local government, business, labor, energy, environment, and social issues. He has worked for the National Journal, The New York Observer, The Athens NEWS, and Plunderbund.com. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Ohio University’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism and is a board member of the E.W. Scripps Society of Alumni and Friends. He can be found on Twitter @DC_DeWitt
Supporters now set sights on collecting enough signatures by July to put the measure to Ohio voters in November
Dr. Amy Burkett, OB/GYN and member of Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights, speaks to media Monday following the Ohio Ballot Board’s vote to verify the language of a proposed constitutional amendment on abortion. Photo: Susan Tebben, OCJ
This article has been updated to include the proposed constitutional amendment (bottom)
The Ohio Ballot Board verified Monday that a proposed amendment for the November ballot to cement abortion rights in the Ohio Constitution can now move forward to the full signature-gathering stage.
In a short Monday meeting, the board, composed of Secretary of State Frank LaRose; Republican state Sen. Theresa Gavarone, Democratic state Sen. Paula Hicks-Hudson, Democratic state Rep. Elliot Forhan, and Bill Morgan, voted unanimously that the proposed ballot initiative only involved one constitutional issue.
The board only heard from two people outside of the board after LaRose insisted that content be kept away from the merits of the amendment or opinions about abortion itself.
John Grove, of Cincinnati Right to Life, still took time to try to discredit the amendment itself, called it “intentionally unjust and misleading.”
Attorney Don McTigue spoke on behalf of the groups proposing the amendment, choosing not to dive into the legal aspects of the amendment, instead saying the “common purpose of the amendment” was individuals having control of one’s own reproductive decisions.
Gavarone acknowledged that the purpose of the Ballot Board business was “procedural,” but still input her opinion before the unanimous vote was recorded.
COLUMBUS, OH — FEBRUARY 22: State Sen. Theresa Gavarone, R-Bowling Green, during the Ohio Senate session, February 22, 2023, at the Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio. (Photo by Graham Stokes for Ohio Capital Journal. Republish photo only with original story.)
“I am horrified at the thought of this amendment, I mean, the right to kill babies being put into Ohio’s constitution,” Gavarone said.
Now that the proposal has been certified by the Ohio Attorney General and verified by the Ohio Ballot Board, groups attempting to get the measure on the ballot can move forward with collecting the more than 400,000 valid signatures needed to officially get the measure to statewide voters.
Laura Strietmann, executive director for Cincinnati Right to Life, said pro-life organizations throughout the state have joined together as well, with a full strategy to fight against the measure.
“We are unified in protecting women in Ohio, in stopping this bill from becoming law,” Strietmann said after the vote.
Abortion rights groups say they are prepared to go forward with field planning, volunteers and petition circulators as early as the end of this week, according to Jordyn Close, deputy director for the Ohio Women’s Alliance and board president for Abortion Fund of Ohio.
The organizations are planning to hit the ground running to get more than enough signatures in a short amount of time. The deadline to submit signatures so the proposal can appear on the November ballot is July.
Part of the plan to bring support to the measure includes informing voters about the true aims of the constitutional amendment on which they would be voting. Claims have already been made by opposition groups that the amendment would bar all abortions, including for baby’s who have reached full term, something supporters of the amendment say won’t happen.
“We are not interested in doing full-term abortion,” said Dr. Amy Burkett, board-certified OB/GYN in northeast Ohio, and member of Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights. “This is about protecting the rights to reproductive health care including abortion, up to viability.”
Viability, Burkett said, should be determined by the physician and patient “based on the technology that is available at the time.”
Amendment supporters aren’t shying away from their pro-abortion stance, despite the trend toward using “pro-choice” as a way of including all options.
“When we talk about reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy, we have to be really specific about what (opposition groups) are attacking,” Close said. “And that is abortion access.”
————————-
Amendment Summary and Text:
TITLE: The Right to Reproductive Freedom with Protections for Health and Safety
SUMMARY The Amendment would amend Article I of the Ohio Constitution by adding Section 22, titled “The Right to Reproductive Freedom with Protections for Health and Safety.”
The Amendment provides that: 1. Every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on contraception, fertility treatment, continuing one’s own pregnancy, miscarriage care, and abortion. 2. The State shall not, directly or indirectly, burden, penalize, prohibit, interfere with, or discriminate against either an individual’s voluntary exercise of this right or a person or entity that assists an individual exercising this right, unless the State demonstrates that it is using the least restrictive means to advance the individual’s health in accordance with widely accepted and evidence-based standards of care. 3. However, abortion may be prohibited after fetal viability. But in no case may such an abortion be prohibited if in the professional judgment of the pregnant patient’s treating physician it is necessary to protect the pregnant patient’s life or health. 4. As used in this Section, “Fetal viability” means “the point in a pregnancy when, in the professional judgment of the pregnant patient’s treating physician, the fetus has a significant likelihood of survival outside the uterus with reasonable measures. This is determined on a case-by-case basis”; and “State” includes any governmental entity and political subdivision. 5. This Section is self-executing.
FULL TEXT OF PROPOSED AMENDMENT
Be it Resolved by the People of the State of Ohio that Article I of the Ohio Constitution is amended to add the following Section: Article I, Section 22. The Right to Reproductive Freedom with Protections for Health and Safety
A. Every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on:
contraception;
fertility treatment;
continuing one’s own pregnancy;
miscarriage care; and
abortion.
B. The State shall not, directly or indirectly, burden, penalize, prohibit, interfere with, or discriminate against either:
An individual’s voluntary exercise of this right or
A person or entity that assists an individual exercising this right, unless the State demonstrates that it is using the least restrictive means to advance the individual’s health in accordance with widely accepted and evidence-based standards of care. However, abortion may be prohibited after fetal viability. But in no case may such an abortion be prohibited if in the professional judgment of the pregnant patient’s treating physician it is necessary to protect the pregnant patient’s life or health.
C. As used in this Section:
“Fetal viability” means “the point in a pregnancy when, in the professional judgment of the pregnant patient’s treating physician, the fetus has a significant likelihood of survival outside the uterus with reasonable measures. This is determined on a case-by-case basis.”
“State” includes any governmental entity and any political subdivision.
The Ohio Attorney General’s Office has certified petition summary language for a proposed amendment to protect abortion rights in the state constitution, which organizers hope to place on the November ballot.
The Ohio Ballot Board will now determine whether or not the initiative only involves changing only one amendment, as required. If approved by the Ballot Board, it gets sent back to the Attorney General, who turns it in to the Ohio Secretary of State’s Office, at which point full signature-gathering can begin.
Advocates must collect signatures from 44 out of 88 counties equal to at least 5% of the total vote cast for the office of governor in that county at the last gubernatorial election. Overall, the petition must gather at least 10% of the total vote cast statewide for the office of governor at the last gubernatorial election. This math means that the group needs at least 442,958 valid signatures.
The drive to protect access to abortion care in Ohio is being spearheaded by Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom and Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights.
However, once it gets out of court, it will likely head to the Ohio Supreme Court. An OCJ/WEWS investigation revealed how those justices already told Right to Life groups that abortion isn’t a Constitutional right.
If the proposed amendment gets to the ballot and is approved by voters, this amendment wouldn’t change existing laws automatically, but it would be the law that applies in all of the pending litigation.
If passed by voters, Article 1 of the Ohio Constitution would be amended to allow “the right to reproductive freedom,” in a change similar to one approved by Michigan voters last year.
The groups supporting the ballot initiative are racing to bring the issue before voters before any changes can be made to the threshold needed to place a measure on the ballot. A GOP effort to raise the bar from 50% plus one to 60% plus one has been ongoing, though it’s unclear how long that might take.
Michigan’s amendment passed with 56.6% of the vote.
Percentage abortion was protected in other states last year:
Kentucky — 52.3%
Montana — 52.5%
Michigan — 56.6%
Kansas — 59%
California — 66%
Vermont — 76.7%
Reporting from OCJ’s Susan Tebben and WEWS’ Morgan Trau contributed to this article.
Ohioans have had the right to direct democracy since 1912, but now lawmakers and Secretary LaRose are going after the power of the people. Because of gerrymandering and dark money, Ohioans have faced years of unpopular and unjust legislation related to democracy, women’s reproductive rights, public education, and so much more.
Yesterday, Rep Brian Stewart and Secretary of State LaRose proposed a bill that would require a 60% yes vote to pass a citizen initiated constitutional amendment, while maintaining that constitutional amendments referred by the Legislature would still only require a simple majority vote to pass.
LaRose claims that this measure is necessary to protect the Ohio Constitution, and that the time is right. We say ABSOLUTELY NOT!
Ohio citizens must already overcome extreme challenges to placing an issue on the ballot. The process requires hundreds of thousands of verified signatures and a strict geographical distribution across at least half of Ohio’s 88 counties.
The process is not overused. In fact, since 1950, only ten out of 44 ballot measures have passed (23%). If so few citizen initiated amendments pass, what problem are we looking to solve?
If this measure passes the Ohio Legislature, it will be on the ballot in May 2023; primary elections in odd numbered years have always historically had very low voter turnout. As little as 10% of the electorate will likely decide how Ohio citizens can practice direct democracy and affect change.
Send a message to your elected leaders and demand that they stop this threat to democracy!
More about the proposal to restrict access to Ohio Voters…
Legislative leaders and the state’s chief elections officer dug their heels in on continuing on with the May primary election, even as Ohio groups seek invalidation of the latest congressional redistricting map.
Secretary of State Frank LaRose, Senate President Matt Huffman and House Speaker Bob Cupp have responded to requests by the League of Women Voters and a group of Ohio citizens represented by the National Redistricting Action Fund that the Ohio Supreme Court invalidated the newest congressional district map.
Huffman and Cupp submitted their response together, starting by saying the Ohio Redistricting Commission “does not exist to simply rubberstamp redistricting plans favored by (court challengers).”
“It is entitled to exercise reasonable discretion in balancing the highly complex factors that go into congressional redistricting,” attorneys for Cupp and Huffman wrote.
While also arguing that the congressional map passed at the beginning of March is constitutional, Cupp and Huffman’s attorneys took the stance that the commission is the only authority in map-making in the state.
The LWV and NRAF had differing opinions on next steps if the court invalidated the map, with the NRAF asking the court to take over, but the LWV saying the map should be sent back to the courts for very specific revisions.
The legislative leaders argued that the Ohio Redistricting Commission is a “creature of the Ohio Constitution,” but with duties provided to it “independent of any other branch of government in Ohio.”
“It is the commission and the general assembly who solely possess the legislative authority to create legislative and congressional districts,” attorneys wrote.
It’s not fair, nor is it in line with the law, to compare the commission-adopted map to other maps that may have been submitted to the commission, but were never brought up for a vote or formally considered, Cupp and Huffman state in their court filing.
In their objections to the map, challengers had offered up maps from Stanford and Harvard political science professors as models for a replacement map.
Republican leaders flatly disagreed with the idea.
“It is now plainer than ever that it is dangerous and disingenuous to base Ohio constitutional law and the voting rights of millions of citizens on this untested and contradictory evidence conceived of by paid-for-hire mathematicians and social scientists,” Cupp and Huffman argued.
LaRose echoed the comments made in Cupp and Huffman’s filings that the map is constitutional and “needs no revision.”
But if the court rejected the map, LaRose said, it does not have the power to “unilaterally implement its own congressional district plan.”
“Again, Secretary LaRose will administer the 2022 congressional primary and general elections in accordance with a constitutional congressional district plan,” attorneys for LaRose wrote.
In this vein, Cupp and Huffman’s attorneys asked that the court “defer any action” on the congressional map until after the 2022 election.
They blamed the new state redistricting process, along with “significant logistical challenges” and even the U.S. Census delays brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic for exacerbating an “already challenging scenario” and leading to the adoption of the new congressional plan only days before the candidate filing period for the May 3 primary.
The Ohio Supreme Court is considering court challenges for not only the congressional map, but also the legislative maps. The ORC adopted the maps one week after the court-ordered February 17 deadline, risking contempt charges.
