Voters go to the polls Tuesday to decide whether the threshold will remain at 50 percent.
On Tuesday, Ohio voters will head to the polls for a special election to decide whether to raise the threshold required to pass a constitutional amendment in the state.
Ohio has used a simple-majority requirement since 1912, but voters will now decide whether that threshold should be bumped up to 60 percent.
Supporters and opponents of the measure, known as Issue 1, agree the vote will have far-reaching implications. Special-interest groups have committed millions of dollars to the race to ensure it remains easier to push their legislative agenda via ballot amendment. If the threshold remains at 50 percent, conservatives warn that Ohio could serve as a blueprint for liberal groups to circumvent the normal legislative process in states across the country.
“What we have seen in Ohio is that our constitution is for sale,” Mehek Cooke, a Republican attorney who has previously served as legal counsel for the Ohio governor’s office, told National Review. “We have special interest groups that are on the outside, opponents that have raised and spent over $10 million exclusively to attack our fundamental constitutional rights with their liberal agenda.”
A campaign committee opposing Issue 1, called “One Person, One Vote,” raised $14.8 million and spent $10.4 million on its efforts, according to campaign-finance reports. Around $13 million of the funds raised came from groups rather than individuals. Donors included the progressive dark-money group Sixteen Thirty Fund, which contributed $2.5 million, and the Ohio Education Association and its national affiliate, which donated $2 million. More than $1.8 million came from the Tides Foundation and another $1 million came from the ACLU.
Of the $14.8 million raised, more donations came from D.C. or California-based donors than from Ohio-based donors.
Meanwhile, Protect Our Constitution, the campaign committee in support of Issue 1, has raised $4.9 million — 82.5 percent of which came from Illinois conservative billionaire Richard Uihlein. The group had spent $1.6 million as of last week.
Protect Our Constitution spokesperson Spencer Gross defended the large out-of-state donation in an interview with the Dayton Daily News.
“I think supporters of Issue 1 are actively funding the demise of any future influence they might have over the state constitution,” Gross said. “The ‘No’ side is utilizing a left-wing dark money network in an attempt to assert power over the state’s founding document rather than go through the legislative process.”
Cooke said raising the threshold is about protecting the state’s constitution from national interest groups that travel across America with an agenda. These groups have decided if they can’t pass a law through the legislature or a governor, they’re going straight for state constitutions, she said.
“We know that Ohio is really their battleground,” she said. “They’re hoping that they can virtually create unlimited rights for reproductive decisions” using ballot measures. But efforts to introduce extreme ballot measures are being undertaken across the country, from New York to Florida, South Dakota to Missouri.
“This is the ACLU’s attack on American values, parental rights, and what’s fundamental to our country,” she said.
Issue 1 would have the most immediate impact on an ACLU-backed Ohio ballot amendment that will come up for a vote in November. That amendment would effectively outlaw any restrictions on abortion and other procedures that involve reproduction, including gender-transition surgeries. It would also remove parental-consent and notification requirements for minors who receive the procedures.
The amendment includes vague language about prohibiting any law that “directly or indirectly” would “burden” or “interfere” with “reproductive decisions.” Opponents of the measure argue that it would also outlaw nearly any restrictions on abortion or other reproduction-related procedures, removing requirements for parental-consent and parental notification, as well as protections for people who undergo the procedures, including requirements that a qualified physician perform them.
Opponents warn that the overly broad use of the phrase “reproductive decisions” would mean the measure would very likely extend to gender-transition treatment. The proposal does not distinguish between minors and adults, either.
The amendment was written by the ACLU, which has spent years fighting to remove parental involvement from abortion and gender-transition procedures. The group says on its website that parental consent and notification laws restrict “teenagers’ access to abortion.” In 2016, the ACLU sided with Planned Parenthood in an Alaska lawsuit that aimed to overturn parental notification laws in the state. One year later, the ACLU argued that parental consent laws in Indiana created an “unconstitutional undue burden.” The group is currently campaigning for a constitutional amendment in Oregon that would allow children to get an abortion without parental knowledge.
ACLU of Ohio attorney Jessie Hill was straightforward with reporters about the Ohio proposal’s intent, saying it would “mean that laws that conflict with it cannot be enforced, should not be enforced,” including existing laws on parental consent.
The passage of Issue 1 could be enough to thwart the group’s efforts: 59 percent of Ohioans said last year they would amend the state constitution to protect abortion access, according to a Baldwin Wallace University poll.
Groups on the Left are pushing back against Issue 1, including the Communist Party of Ohio, which called the special election the “most important” election in state history and encouraged Ohioans to vote against the measure “to prevent big business interests from deciding public policy.”
Ohio house minority leader Allison Russo has claimed that a “yes” vote on Issue 1 would take power away from people and give it to politicians.
“That is absolutely false,” Cooke said. “How does increasing the voter percentage of people that have a say in their constitution mean less power? It actually means that there are more voices that determine what constitutional amendments pass.”
Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights, the coalition behind the abortion ballot measure, has claimed that the special election is an anti-democratic attempt to prevent the abortion measure from passing.
“They have tried everything under the sun to stop this,” said Marcela Azevedo, the group’s president. “These are extreme measures and, to be honest, desperate.”
But Cooke argues Issue 1 is about much more than any one measure.
The issue goes back years, to when a ballot amendment authorized casino gaming at facilities located at specific locations in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, and Toledo. The amendment, backed by would-be casino owners and operators, passed by 52 percent in November 2009.
But now the Left is looking toward relying on ballot measures to advance its agenda on a whole host of issues, including the legalization of recreational marijuana, an increased minimum wage, and livestock care standards.
Cleveland mayor Justin Bibb, a Democrat, urged Ohioans to vote against Issue 1 so that some day a ballot measure on gun control might advance.
“We can use our real political power to change the culture of guns in this state. It starts by voting no on Issue 1, by the way, to make sure we can maybe put a ballot measure on our state constitution to have common-sense gun reform,” he said.
And while these ballot measures are dangerous because they circumvent the typical process for legislating policy, the measures are also often written in misleading language that can make it difficult for voters to understand what exactly they’re voting for.
“Ohio is that battleground state that will tell the ACLU and groups alike whether they can push for painful life-altering surgeries and obliterate parental rights. So we have to be careful. All eyes should be on Ohio to see what the ACLU is doing because . . . Florida, Arizona, Missouri, South Dakota . . . are next.”
“There are many states on the map across America that are next. And I think that every parent and family and even small business needs to start looking and understanding that this isn’t a single issue. This is broadly about what’s happening and the fundamentals of how we raise our families, how we raise our children, our morals, our ethics, and how we want to run our businesses as well,” she said.
Ohio state representative Brian Stewart and state senator Rob McColley argued that raising the threshold to 60 percent “will ensure amendments have widespread support and tell special interests that our constitution is not up for grabs” and “protect Ohio’s constitution similar to the way the U.S. Constitution has been protected since our country’s founding.”
“If any outside group believes its ideas are worthy of inclusion in Ohio’s constitution, then they should be able to earn the widespread public support that a 60% vote margin will require,” Stewart said.
Issue 1 would also require citizens who want to place an amendment on the ballot to collect signatures from at least 5 percent of voters from the last gubernatorial election in all 88 counties — double the current requirement of just 44 counties. “Special interests will have one chance to play by the rules when gathering signatures to place proposed amendments on the ballot,” the lawmakers said.
The measure would also eliminate a ten-day cure period that allows citizens to replace any signatures found to be invalid by the secretary of state’s office.
A new poll from Ohio Northern University shows Ohioans evenly divided on Issue 1: 42 percent said they are in favor of the measure, 41 percent said they are against it, and another 17 percent said they are still undecided.
Cooke predicts the special election will be a “dead heat.”
Protect Women Ohio announced earlier this week it would spend an additional $5.5 million in the final push ahead of the August 8 special election on television, radio, and digital ads in support of Issue 1. The group spent more than $3 million on ads last month, bringing its total paid media buy in support of Issue 1 to $9 million.