As activists across Ohio are trying to get a referendum on the ballot to repeal the state's near-total abortion ban, Republicans in the state legislature are reportedly fighting back in a deceptive way — introducing a referendum of their own that would require any future referendum to pass with a 60% threshold, and slipping that referendum into an August off-cycle election that they hope they can win through lower turnout.
The editorial board for the Cleveland Plain Dealer ripped apart the GOP's plan in a furious editorial on Wednesday, accusing them of unconstitutionally trying to conceal from voters what the ballot question, Ohio Issue 1, would actually do.
"Secretary of State Frank LaRose and the other two Republicans on the Ohio Ballot Board have improperly put their thumbs on the scale to boost a statewide ballot issue scheduled for Aug. 8 that would make it far harder to pass any constitutional amendment in Ohio -- and exponentially more difficult to get citizen-initiated amendments on the ballot," wrote the board. "They did that by specifying 'ballot language' — the wording Ohioans will see when they vote — that masks what proposed State Issue 1 would do."
"First off, the wording that the board’s Republicans approved claims in its title that the proposal is aimed at, 'Elevating the standards to qualify for and to pass any constitutional amendment.' In fact, the amendment increases the requirements for getting an issue on the ballot," wrote the board. "The ballot language also 'fails to mention what the existing law is,' a Democratic member of the Ballot Board, state Rep. Elliot Forhan, of South Euclid, told cleveland.com’s Andrew J. Tobias. 'What happened here is an attempt to get one over on Ohio voters.'" And the referendum language doesn't clarify to voters that the bill also changes the requirement to get signatures from half of all counties to all 88, and eliminates a 10-day grace period to cure signatures to place new referenda on the ballot.
All of this is patently unconstitutional, argued the board, as the state constitution says that “ballot language shall properly identify the substance of the proposal to be voted upon.” Furthermore, the state Supreme Court has struck down previous ballot questions on these grounds, including a 2012 referendum to create a redistricting commission.
"As proposed by LaRose and the Ballot Board’s two other Republicans, the official ballot language for State Issue 1 fails to give voters a clear picture of what it and its GOP godparents aim to do," warned the board. "The Ballot Board should have drawn that picture. But it didn’t. The Supreme Court must step up."
