COLUMBUS — The first fight in a campaign to make it tougher to amend the Ohio Constitution will take place in court.
Opponents of the proposed constitutional amendment on Friday sued Secretary of State Frank LaRose in Ohio Supreme Court to challenge the legality of holding an Aug. 8 special election for voters to consider the question.
The referendum would ask voters whether they want to amend the state constitution to require all future such amendments to get at least 60 percent voter approval to take effect. The current standard is a simple majority.
“Such changes are unpopular with voters,” reads the lawsuit filed on behalf of One Person One Vote, the entity created by opponents to fight the ballot issue, and by three Ohio voters.
“Similar measures failed in South Dakota and Arkansas when voters rejected them during primary and general elections in 2022,” the suit reads. “In an apparent effort to avoid a similar fate for the amendment, [Senate Joint Resolution 2] purports to submit the amendment to the voters at an Aug. 8, 2023 special election. Turnout in August special elections is typically anemic.”
The suit asks the court to order Mr. LaRose to stop the election.
While legislative Republicans referenced the Aug. 8 date in their resolution to put the question to voters, the Ohio House of Representatives failed to pass a companion Senate bill designed to specifically resurrect August special elections in Ohio law to consider statewide ballot issues.
Just months ago, the General Assembly passed an elections reform law that did away with August special elections in all but the rarest circumstances, noting their expense and typically low turnout.
“A joint resolution may not repeal or amend a statute,” the lawsuit reads.
Senate Bill 92, sponsored by state Sens. Rob McColley (R., Napoleon) and Theresa Gavarone (R., Bowling Green), also would have provided $20 million to help counties pay for this election.
With some House Republicans supporting the resolution but objecting to a special election, the House couldn’t get the Senate bill across the finish line. There was also concern the bill could have been subjected to voter referendum.
The lawsuit contends current law allows the General Assembly to present voters with proposed constitutional amendments only during November general elections, May primary elections or, in presidential years, March primaries.
For many Republicans, the change is designed to raise the bar for passage Nov. 7 of a proposal to write into the Ohio Constitution a right to abortion access.
“We believe in one voter, one vote,” said Mark Harrington, president of the anti-abortion group Created Equal. “Ohioans are going to get a chance to decide whether they want to protect the Ohio Constitution from out-of-state money influence and mob rule.
“We live in a representative republic, not a pure democracy,” he said. “Ohio needs to follow the lead of dozens of other states and the federal government in making it difficult to amend our founding document.”
The Ohio Chamber of Commerce and other business groups recently joined supporters of the higher threshold, but their primary motivation is a minimum-wage hike that could make the ballot in 2024.
If approved by voters, the higher-threshold amendment would also, beginning in 2024, eliminate the current 10-day grace period for proposed amendments’ petitioners to supplement signatures when county boards of elections determines their petitions initially came up short.
If would also require such petitions to obtain a certain threshold of signatures in all 88 Ohio counties, up from 44 now, in addition to meeting the statewide requirement.
First Published May 12, 2023, 7:05 p.m.
