Here is your super short guide to tomorrow's election in Ohio:
December: Ohio abolishes August elections because they are wasteful and attract low turnouts.
February: Two pro-choice groups submit language for a referendum in November to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.
May: In a turnaround, Republicans vote for one last August election this year. After 111 years of referendums needing 50% of the vote to pass, they suddenly decide it's urgent to ask voters to increase this to 60%.
Tuesday's vote is explicitly about making it harder for the November abortion referendum to pass. It almost certainly has majority support in the state, so Republicans are looking for a way to allow a minority to keep abortion restrictions in place.
If they win, and the abortion measure then loses, don't be surprised if Republicans submit a new referendum to change things back to 50%. That's how they roll these days.
Republican Calvinball?
Are comments about Calvinball still a thing? I feel like one is called for right now.
Even better, the Republicans have been claiming that the need for referendum reform is undue out-of-state influence in Ohio politics. As it happens, Richard Uihlein (founder of Uline) spent $1 million lobbying the Ohio legislature to put Issue 1 on the ballot, and another $4 million (out of $4.85 million total) to advertise "Yes on Issue 1." Where does Mr. Uihlein reside, you ask? Why, Illinois, of course.
Republicans are lying scum. Part 5469.
Being honest IF I supported the broader goal around abortion, I would likely chalk this up to politics. Since I oppose the broader goal, I think this move sucks!
At least I am honest about my political filter...
Why 60% ? Why are they so sure that 60% is enough?
Because the polling shows that the abortion amendment has something like 56% support.
I'd guess it's political calculus at play. If they can bump it to 60% the GOP f probably figures they can defeat the proposed abortion rights referendum, but if they go for a higher threshhold (say, 70%) it might be more difficult to get past the electorate (it'll sound more extreme?).
It's not just 60%. To get a referendum the ballot would also require signatures from a minimum of 5% of electors from all 88 counties instead of previous 44 which means any single small, red county could stymie it. The change also removes a 10 day grace period to fix any incorrect signatures.
Yeah, this is just another in a long line of moves by the Republicans to change the rules while they can to entrench their minority power. (I'm looking at you, Wisconsin and North Carolina, stripping the Governor of power as soon as the R's lost.)
Our own version of this in my current home state of MO is that we passed a resolution to have redistricting done by a non-partisan commission. It passed comfortably.
In the next election, the R's put up a referendum to ``reform'' elections: eliminate lobbyist gifts, limit campaign donations to $2400, (have the state legislature, controlled by Republicans, seat the redistricting board -- this latter part said as quietly as possible).
Gifts were already limited to $10, and donations were already limited to $2500, but the measure just squeaked by. We handed back control of the process to the R's for $100 and a cup of coffee. Nice deal there.
At least Republicans are consistent in thier ethics, beliefs and policies: Anything goes when it comes to getting what they want.
Repulsives are like cats. When they are in they want out. When they are out they want in. They are never happy.
There is no need to repeal it if it passes. Republicans have a gerrymandered super majority in the state legislature. Ballot initiatives are the last/best check and balance left against them. Once they are gone, they will want them to stay gone.
Actually I would be "surprised if Republicans submit a new referendum to change things back to 50%." That's because Republicans are worried about a couple of other referenda that are being mooted, as explained here:
https://www.cleveland.com/news/2023/05/ohio-business-groups-back-60-constitution-proposal-citing-minimum-wage-medical-freedom-amendments.html
There's a movement to get a raise in the minimum wage via referendum, and many Ohioans are fed up by the present gerrymandering and likely to vote by referendum to establish that redistricting be put in the hands of an independent commission.
They might change it back right away, or as jmlowenstein and segreclass say, they might keep it that way in order to prevent majorities from overruling measures the minority gop forces on the state and that majorities hate. Could go either way, because how the gop rolls these days is whatever gets them their way for now.
I was born and raised in Ohio, and this current gop makes me ashamed to say so. But then I'm old enough to remember when the Ohio gop was all Chamber of Commerce and Jim Rhodes touting tomato juice. How quaint that all seems, now that it's all stunts like this, and Larry Householder the other poster child.
Changing a Constitution should require a super majority. The timing, of course, strongly suggests ulterior motives.
BTW, don't you know the difference between explicit and implicit?
It's more than just requiring 60% though. It would also require signatures from all 88 counties to get a measure on the ballot at all and eliminates the ability to cure faulty signatures. So it also makes it nearly impossible to get a grassroots referendum on the ballot to be voted on in the first place.
Why?
By requiring a supermajority (on any question, not just Constitutional amendments), you empower the minority, and the greater the required supermajority ratio, the greater that power granted to the minority. Why is that a good thing? (I'm not saying that it is or isn't; I'm just curious about the reasoning, because in my experience, while people tend to espouse that attitude in the abstract, it all goes away when it comes down to specific issues.)
Republicans are dead set against "wasteful gummint spending" -- unless, of course, it's them wasting the taxpayers' money. Yeah, throw in a couple of unnecessary "special elections" on a single issue -- elections which cost just as much as a full General Election in leap years. Endless "investigations" of long-determined non-events which are little more than magnified trolling.
We need to keep calling out this crap, even if the news media and the Demorats refuse to do so.
News sites say it flopped.