On Tuesday, Ohioans will go to the polls to vote on whether to make it more difficult for ballot initiatives to prevail in the state.
Issue 1 would change the standard for approving state constitutional amendments from a simple majority to 60%. Abortion rights are not mentioned in the ballot item on Tuesday, but they are at the center of a controversy that has drawn a lot of attention for a non-election year.
Issue 1’s success will make it more difficult for a ballot initiative this autumn that would include abortion rights in the state constitution.
By requiring signatures from voters in all 88 of Ohio’s counties rather to just 44 as is currently required, Tuesday’s ballot issue would further tighten the standards for groups attempting to put future ballot measures on the ballot before voters. The bill would also do away with the 10-day “curing” period, which presently allows groups to collect new signatures to replace any old ones that officials deem illegitimate.
Issue 1 is allegedly intended to make it more difficult for the abortion measure to pass, as numerous Republican state lawmakers have openly acknowledged. Reproductive rights organizations have long argued this.
The proposed ballot amendment to codify abortion rights in the state Constitution would require the backing of 60% of voters to pass if voters approve the threshold legislation on Tuesday. The November measure would simply require a simple majority if it were to fail.
Since special elections in August are expensive, low-turnout affairs that aren’t worth the hassle, Ohio Republicans approved a law in January that basically removes them off the state’s schedule.
But a few months later, as pro-choice organizations got closer to putting their own constitutional modification on the November ballot, state Republicans changed their minds and decided to have the election in August.
As a candidate for the U.S. Senate, Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose said in a video that the summer ballot initiative was “100% about keeping an extreme pro-abortion amendment out of our constitution.”
Millions of dollars have been spent on advertising by groups on both sides of the argument to mobilize their supporters.
The largest contributor to Issue 1 among the organizations that support it, Protect Women Ohio, pledged $9 million for state-wide television, radio, and digital advertising. Protect Women Ohio is a well-known opponent of abortion rights.
The group has already pledged $25 million for advertisements against the proposal on the November ballot.
Their advertisements mostly focus on attempts to connect the policies in both races to limitations on parental rights. The campaign has also placed a strong emphasis on criticizing organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, which according to Protect Women Ohio, supports the restriction of parental rights. However, unbiased experts have criticized the ads as false and deceptive, and proponents of reproductive rights contend that they are misdirected and intended to keep voters from supporting abortion rights—a topic on which the general population does not support the anti-abortion rights movement.
On the other hand, One Person One Vote, the major campaigning organization attempting to oppose the August ballot initiative, has spent more than $1.1 million on advertisements over the previous two months. Additionally, representatives of the coalition for reproductive rights, which is in favor of the November amendment, have stated that they intend to spend at least $35 million by that month.
One Person One Vote’s campaign ads mostly emphasize Republican hypocrisy and highlight LaRose’s admission that the August proposal was intended to make it more difficult to codify abortion rights in the Ohio Constitution.
Recent polling indicates that the odds are against the groups expecting to pass the legislation on Tuesday: According to a USA Today/Suffolk University poll conducted last month, 26% of registered Ohio voters supported Issue 1, while 57% said they opposed it. 17% more people indicated they were unsure.
In Ohio, where a simple majority has been necessary for constitutional amendment passage since 1912, raising the bar would signal a significant change. Four former Republican governors and other former Republican officeholders have publicly criticized the proposal.
However, if the proposal were to succeed, it would make it more difficult for the proposed November amendment to pass.
A recent higher barrier has been proposed, but according to public polls, only around 59% of Ohio citizens support placing abortion rights in the state constitution.
In the year since the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade, efforts around the United States have closely mirrored Ohio’s effort to use the state constitution to maintain abortion rights.
While pro-abortion rights candidates won in all six states where the issue was on the ballot last year, including conservative states like Kentucky and Kansas, voters in two other states—progressive strongholds Vermont and California—passed pro-abortion rights determines with at least 60% of the vote. None of the anti-abortion rights bills received 60 percent or more of the vote in order to be defeated.
The Ohio “heartbeat bill,” which went into effect as soon as the Supreme Court reversed Roe, was the target of the proposed November amendment. The majority of abortions are practically prohibited by that law, with a few exceptions for the pregnant woman’s health and ectopic pregnancies. However, a state judge has temporarily stopped its implementation.