We’ve been hearing from readers that they want more coverage of Issue 1, the Aug. 8 ballot issue in which Ohioans are being asked to devalue their votes and weaken democracy by raising the bar for passing amendments to the Ohio constitution.
Readers fear too few people know about the danger of this proposal, which would allow 40 percent of Ohioans to dictate policy to the other 60 percent. It’s a way for Statehouse Republicans, who used gerrymandering to give themselves super majorities, to block voters from using the ballot to reverse some of the preposterous laws they have passed.
It’s also about abortion. The majority of Ohioans want abortion to be legal, and an amendment to set that into the Ohio Constitution could be headed to the ballot. If the August initiative passes, based on the low turnout Republicans lawmakers want, the abortion amendment could be dead. The same lawmakers who outlawed August special elections less than a year ago have set this cause of August for all of the reasons they said August elections are bad.
We will continue to cover this important moment in Ohio’s democracy, and one way we can do that is to publish transcripts of our discussions about it on Today in Ohio, our weekday news discussion podcast. I host and am joined by Leila Atassi, Lisa Garvin and Laura Johnston.
This is the discussion we had on Tuesday, May 23, 2023.
Chris: I guess he has no choice since it is his job to make the argument. But what is the ridiculous case that Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost is making to the Ohio Supreme Court about why an August election is legal even though state lawmakers outlawed August elections. Yes. We’re talking about the underhanded, hypocritical, and sinister move by Ohio’s Republican lawmakers to cripple the ability of state residents to amend their constitution. Leila?
Leila: Yeah. Dave Yost is arguing that. Even though the GOP state lawmakers did ban August special elections, they should still be allowed to set an August special election because the state constitution permits them to do it.
There’s a part of the Ohio constitution that says proposed amendments from state lawmakers can be sent before voters “at either a special or a general election as the General Assembly may prescribe.” A group called One Person, One Vote is suing to stop the August election on the grounds that, I mean, quite plainly, lawmakers just outlawed such a thing in December.
But in his filing with the Ohio Supreme Court, defending against that argument, Yost writes “just like the General Assembly cannot legislate away an individual’s constitutional rights, it also cannot legislate away its own constitutional powers”
The hypocrisy of this moment in Ohio political history is just astounding, really.
Chris: Look, the reason that argument is bogus is because of, yes, they cannot legislate away their authority to set elections. They can set restrictions on how elections are set. That’s what they did. They passed the law that the governor signed. They have the power to get rid of that law if they so choose.
What Dave Yost is saying is true, then what they passed was an unconstitutional law, and he never said that when they passed it and the governor signed it. It’s completely bogus argument, but he has to, has to make it. This is the saddest moment, really, that I think I can remember in Ohio. Republicans through gerrymandering have amassed this great power because the democratic leaders in the state were asleep at the switch, but it’s not enough. Now, they want to make sure that Ohio voters cannot use the ballot box to stop them from lording themselves over the state. So they wanna set it up so 40% of the people can decide what the other 60% do. It’s like that line from the Bruce Springsteen song: “Poor man wanna be rich. Rich man wanna be king. King ain’t satisfied until he rules everything.” That’s what this is about. They are trying to take total control and leave people no recourse.
Leila: Right. Well, I feel like we can’t make this public service announcement strong enough. For listeners who might be hearing this for the first time, if this passes in the August special election, it would mean that future state constitutional amendments would require 60% of the vote plus one vote to pass. Just like Chris said, 40% of voters will have more power than the majority. This amendment would also impose incredibly difficult requirements on signature gathering just to get an issue on the ballot.
Laura: Yeah, I mean, I think we can’t underestimate that, too, that you’d have to get all 88 counties to sign on. One county could hold the rest of the state hostage, and if you got a bunch of signatures invalidated, which they often do, then you have to start over. I mean, the whole point is, we don’t ever want change. We don’t want the people to have a say.
Chris: No, no, no. They want change. They only want the change that they put on the ballot. Because there will not be another constitutional amendment. It won’t happen. I don’t think the abortion folks can get the signatures in every county to put it on the ballot, which they’ve gone through all the legal steps so far.
Look, I sent out a text yesterday on the text account where we let people know what we’re working on, and I said, “Hey, I’m hearing from a lot of people that are kind of beating us up saying, we haven’t done enough on this,” which is astounding to me. Because I feel like we’ve covered every turn of the screw.
We’ve had eviscerating conversations about this thing on the podcast. Our editorial board has thrown as hard a punch as I can remember that we’ve thrown, saying it’s bad, bad, bad. What I got back was more than 250 responses saying, “You’re right. You’re right. You guys are doing a great job. Please don’t stop doing a great job, but how do you get your message to the rest of the state?”
There are also suggestions, like some people said, why don’t you go through the amendments that have passed and show what life in Ohio would be like if we hadn’t passed them because they didn’t get 60%. We’ve mentioned those, but that’s a good idea. We can do that. That’s a good idea..
Leila: Without a doubt, this, this just guts democracy in Ohio. It undermines your power as a voter. I mean, listeners, please tell your friends and family that they need to know about this. These, these villains in Columbus are counting on all of us to stay home in August and just passively let this happen.
Laura: And they’re also using double speak. They’re trying to tell people we don’t want outside interests changing Ohio law. What they’re using is outside interest money.
Chris: Look, this isn’t subjective. This an attack on democracy. There’s no way you can make the argument (for it), and that’s why they’re using double speak. They don’t have a good argument to do it, so they’re just flat out lying. Frank LaRose is lying. Matt Huffman’s lying. They’re all lying. Or the ones that are being honest, they’re saying, we’re doing this to stop the majority from legalizing abortion.
But it’s bad in every respect possible. It’ll make Ohio a place you really don’t want to live.
One of the ideas I had -- we talk about this a lot on the podcast. We run a transcript of this podcast every day, but maybe we should break this conversation out. Whenever we have it, give it a separate headline and put it out into the sphere so people can see it.
I’m at wit’s end. We don’t circulate down in southern Ohio. There are parts of this state that aren’t aware that we exist. I don’t know how to get to them. And local television has abandoned every responsibility it ever had to cover news. They cover crime, they cover weather. They’re not talking about this much, if at all. So I don’t know how you get this message out, but people are leaning on us pretty heavy to step it up somehow.
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