Ohio Capital Journal: Legal expert, voter advocates slam Ohio GOP plan to make citizen ballot initiatives harder to pass

Ohio Republicans introduced a new resolution Thursday that purposely makes it more difficult for citizens to amend the state Constitution.

Republican Sec. of State Frank LaRose and state Rep. Brian Stewart (R-Ashville) put forward the “Ohio Constitution Protection Amendment,” which is “designed to help protect the Ohio Constitution from continued abuse by special interests and out-of-state activists.”

In a press conference, the pair announced that the legislation would increase the threshold requirement for a citizen-led constitutional amendment ballot initiative to pass. This would increase the percentage of votes an initiative would need.

The new amendment would require petition-based amendments to pass with 60% of the vote, instead of a simple majority. A simple majority is 50% plus one vote. …

Some activists, like Catherine Turcer with Common Cause Ohio, say this would make it significantly harder for Ohioans, regardless of political affiliation, to have their voices heard.

“It’s just like putting your hand on the scale making it even harder for citizens to challenge the authority of the state legislature,” she said. “And direct democracy is about a check on the state legislature.” …

It is likely there will be proposals on reproductive healthcare and the redistricting process, he said.

The Dobbs decision has mobilized voters in six different states across the country. Each state, both Democratic and Republican, chose to keep abortion legal.

“Because of what the Supreme Court decided, the voters are the appropriate people to make that decision,” Turcer said. …

The other issue that is at the top of Turcer’s mind is redistricting. …

“There hasn’t been a citizen initiative since 2018,” she said. “In other words, we haven’t had one on the ballot for a really long time.”

That 2018 initiative was about the redistricting process, which was supposed to focus on preventing gerrymandering. But loopholes existed, and the system could be exploited, Turcer said. A new one could possibly be in the works.

“We’re talking about the need to do a citizen initiative to take the mapmaking away from elected officials and create an independent commission,” she said. “The only reason to do this is to thwart the will of the people and to retain power — and the power to gerrymander,” she added.

She found it suspicious that LaRose, who was one of the members of the ORC, is in such a rush to put this forward as new maps are supposed to be drawn this coming year. …

Both Steinglass and Turcer reemphasized this is not a Democrat versus Republican issue: it’s a citizen versus lawmaker issue.