Now, however, the General Assembly’s Republican majority fears that voters might amend the Ohio Constitution to guarantee the legality of abortion in this state. So legislative Republicans proposed State Issue 1, which would require a statewide “yes” vote of at least 60% to amend Ohio’s constitution.
For the incumbent General Assembly, politics is a game of tricky words. To make sure of that, Secretary of State Frank LaRose, an Upper Arlington Republican, and his fellow Ballot Board Republicans. massaged the Issue 1 wording that Ohio voters will see on their ballots.
Part of that wording is, after a slight tweaking at the court’s behest, “Elevating the standards to qualify for an initiated constitutional amendment and to pass a constitutional amendment.”
That’s not how ordinary Ohioans speak no matter what dictionary the Supreme Court consulted. When BP boosts gasoline prices, or the electric company jacks up monthly charges, the oil company didn’t “elevate” its prices; and American Electric Power, AES Ohio, Duke or FirstEnergy don’t “elevate” electric rates. In those contexts, “elevates” is a weasel word. And what’s really going is a bid by the legislature to cripple a power that the voters of Ohio have enjoyed for more than 100 years by raising, not elevating, the signature requirements.
That a 4-3 majority of Supreme Court acted as it did — taking a back seat to its supposed equals, Ohio’s legislative and executive branches — is an old pattern.
Ohio’s highest court has never been ranked better than middle of the pack — and that’s on a good day — among the nation’s 50 state supreme courts. We’re not talking Albany, Boston, or Sacramento. As previously noted, this is what scholars G. Alan Tarr and Mary Cornelia Aldis Porter wrote in 1988: “The Ohio [Supreme Court] was dominated from the close of the Civil War to 1978 [when the late Frank D. Celebrezze, a Cleveland Democrat, was elected chief justice] by conservative, ‘old stock’ Republicans who fashioned the law to conform to the values and interests they shared with small town and rural Ohioans, with business and industry.”
So ingrained has this become in Ohio that when the Supreme Court (albeit, under Republican Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, since retired) ordered the GOP-run Redistricting Commission, in so many words, to draw fair General Assembly districts, the commissioners simply ignored the court. Result: The Looney Tunes legislature that now rules Ohio while Ohio communities, the Columbus region aside, are hurting. Politically, we’re treading water because the General Assembly is obsessed with policing bedrooms.
The challenge that legislators don’t want is voters with the realistic power to directly propose amendments to the Ohio Constitution.
That’s why the General Assembly passed State Issue 1 and why Frank LaRose is seeking Republican IOUs (for a Senate race) by putting his thumb on the ballot-language scale. The only thing Issue 1 will “elevate” is the power the General Assembly has over ordinary Ohioans, notably over the reproductive health and choices of a majority of Ohio’s population — women.
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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