Were voters to OK the plan — with a “yes” vote of at least 50% plus one (the current requirement for constitutional amendments) — then future amendments would require a “yes” vote of at least 60%. The sponsor of HJR 6 is Republican Rep. Brian Stewart, of Pickaway County’s Ashville.
Plainly put, HJR 6 could make it exceedingly difficult for pro-abortion-choice advocates, or gerrymandering foes, to win statewide ballot issues addressing either issue.
As it is, Republicans run the Ohio General Assembly. Republicans run the Ohio Supreme Court. Republicans run Ohio’s executive branch, from the governorship on down. The next agenda item, evidently, is to gag Ohio’s voters, who are paying for the GOP’s antics.
The proposed 60% requirement is arguably the most brazen attempted Statehouse power grab since an earlier GOP-run legislature, and Republican then-Gov. James A. Rhodes (on another May 2 — in 1967) proposed an Ohio Bond Commission.
The Bond Commission — had voters not vetoed it with a 67% “no” vote — could have run up Ohio’s general obligation bond debt without voters’ OK, something forbidden then, still forbidden now — one reason Ohio’s credit rating is as strong as it is.
The Ohio House Government Oversight Committee’s Republican members recommended HJR 6′s passage by the House. The committee’s pro-HJR 6 septet: Reps. Cindy Abrams, of suburban Cincinnati; Timothy Ginter, of Salem; Don Jones, of Harrison County’s Freeport; Kevin D. Miller, of Newark; William G. Seitz, of Cincinnati; D.J. Swearingen, of Huron; and its chair, Rep. Shane Wilkin, of Hillsboro.
(The committee’s chair, Wilkin, was a prime co-sponsor of 2019′s House Bill 6, to force electricity consumers to bail out money losing nuclear power plants then owned by Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp.)
Furthermore: When the 2023-24 Ohio General Assembly begins its session next month, state senators’ and state representatives’ main goal (besides re-election) will or should be to write a balanced state budget for the two years that’ll begin July 1.
In that connection, there is an added factor that will help stoke Ohio’s 2023-24 budget debate: Continued funding (or not) for the Fair School Funding plan, which legislators began to fund in the current state budget.
The expectation (or at least the implication) has been that the state Senate and Ohio House will continue the Fair School Funding plan’s outlays in the 2023-24 budget. But there’s a complicating factor. A fair number of the General Assembly’s Republicans favor so-called school choice “backpack” plans — in effect, no matter a family’s income or school district, a universal school voucher program to help families pay for private K-12 school tuition.
That idea enjoys a spectrum of support among conservatives. Just as predictably the Ohio Education Association is opposed because of the threat that voucher plans present to traditional public school funding. There’s no telling if the idea will come to a Statehouse vote in 2023 or 2024, but people on either side of the issue should remember this stark political fact:
Since Ohio began school-voucher programs 27 years ago, in 1995 (for pupils in Cleveland’s schools), the legislature has constantly expanded school-choice in Ohio, sometimes slowly, yes — but steadily.
Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University. You can reach him at tsuddes@gmail.com.
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