COLUMBUS — Will there be another attempt to legalize marijuana?
Are Ohioans ready to raise the minimum wage again, borrow billions to battle Lake Erie algae and invest in clean energy, or overhaul how the state redraws congressional districts?
All of these questions may — or may not — reach the Nov. 8, 2016, general election ballot, when they would compete for expensive TV airtime and voters’ attention with presidential, congressional, and state legislative candidates. In the past, ballot issues have sometimes been timed to try to draw desired voters to the polls.
In other elections, those backing the ballot issues gamble that expected larger turnouts — such as younger voters or conservatives — might boost their chances.
“We can all think about when they did the anti-gay marriage amendment [in 2004] to try to attract Republican voters,” said Catherine Turcer, of the government watchdog group Common Cause Ohio.
“That’s a good example of something that was likely unnecessary, but it was a way to try to get a certain demographic and get the base powered up for the vote.”
After the failure of Issue 3 earlier this month, ResponsibleOhio, the investor-backed group that spent an estimated $25 million to promote the issue, vowed it will be back in 2016 with a new marijuana question.
Pot proposals
A variety of other competing marijuana-legalization proposals have won approval to collect signatures, but they’ve lacked momentum and, in particular, the deep pockets of ResponsibleOhio to hire the professional petition circulators often needed to gather the roughly 306,000 valid signatures of registered voters to qualify for the ballot.
These other proposals would legalize marijuana strictly for medical purposes while others would add recreational marijuana and industrial hemp to the mix.
ResponsibleOhio plans to abandon its proposed exclusivity for 10 investor-run grow sites in favor of open competition for the business.
Ian James, the group’s executive director, said being on the 2015 ballot worked against the first attempt as expectations of a high urban turnout didn’t pan out. So he expects the presidential election to be a better fit.
“We find that independents and Democrats lean strongly toward the legalization side of the equation,” he said. “Being on the presidential ballot is beneficial.”
But he recognizes that it may increase some costs of the campaign.
“TV [ad] time is significantly more expensive, and you can also have federal candidates pre-empt your time,” he said. “Your Toledo Blade advertising probably goes up. Radio across the board is a much more expensive ticket item.”
ResponsibleOhio is also behind the Fresh Start Act, a proposed citizen-initiated statute rather than constitutional amendment.
It already has been certified by the secretary of state’s office and will be placed in state lawmakers’ laps for consideration at the start of 2016.
The proposed law would erase criminal convictions for activities that are no longer illegal.
Its immediate impact, even if passed, was severely undermined when voters chose not to legalize marijuana.
Lawmakers will have four months to act.
If not, the group has said it would gather more signatures to put the law directly before voters on the November ballot, where it could appear next to ResponsibleOhio-Phase 2.
Minimum wage
Backers of a proposed constitutional amendment to again raise Ohio’s minimum wage also hope to gather the signatures necessary by the early July deadline to qualify for the November ballot.
The Ohio Constitution already provides for an automatic cost-of-living adjustment in the minimum wage.
Because of stagnant inflation, the minimum wage will remain at $8.10 in 2016 and at $4.05 for tipped workers.
The ballot proposal would gradually phase in a $12-per-hour rate over five years beginning in 2017.
The new tipped wage would be $6, and it would gradually climb until it is brought in line with the minimum for nontipped employees.
“The minimum wage would make sense [to be on the ballot] during a presidential election year when more Democrats might come out to vote,” Ms. Turcer said. “The marijuana ballot issue could also do better in a presidential election than in an off-year election when the stalwarts, who tend to be older and more Republican, vote.”
More possibilities
Other possible ballot issues include:
● A proposed constitutional amendment pushed by a group of investors to have the state borrow more than $14 billion over 11 years to invest in wind, solar, biomass, battery, and other clean-energy projects.
● A possible $1 billion bond issue being considered by lawmakers to fight toxic algae and other threats to Lake Erie, the Ohio River, and other state waterways.
● A possible sequel to this year’s voter approval of reforms in how Ohio redraws state House and Senate districts every 10 years. A Senate proposal would ask voters to do something similar with congressional districts.
● The Ohio Drug Price Relief Act, another proposed citizen-initiated statute, to spread discounted prescription drug prices enjoyed by the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs to beneficiaries of state prescription assistance programs.
This proposal cannot appear on the 2016 ballot unless it files petitions by the end of this year to give lawmakers the first crack at passing it.
A number of other proposals have won approval to begin gathering signatures but have shown little momentum.
Among them is a so-called right-to-work constitutional amendment to prohibit mandatory collection of fees in lieu of dues from employees who refuse to join the workplace union that negotiates their contracts.
There is also a proposed constitutional amendment to further tighten state legislative term limits, but that plan is largely considered a threat to keep lawmakers from submitting their own plan to voters to ease the current limits.
Contact Jim Provance at: jprovance@theblade.com or 614-221-0496.
First Published November 29, 2015, 5:00 a.m.
