A ballot initiative about the rules of ballot initiatives might sound mundane at first, but it’s actually Ohio Republicans’ not-so-secret weapon to keep abortion rights out of the state constitution. And next week, the measure is coming before voters in a late-summer special election that state Republicans pushed through at the eleventh hour—despite recently swearing off August elections.
Issue 1 seeks to raise the threshold of votes needed to pass future citizen-led constitutional amendments to 60 percent, instead of the current simple majority (50 percent plus one) requirement that’s been in place since 1912. It also includes tighter rules for submitting citizen-led amendments: A petition has to be signed by at least 5 percent of all voters from the last gubernatorial election from all 88 Ohio counties, with no recourse for replacing any faulty signatures.
Republicans are pushing for Issue 1 in response to a measure that will be on the November ballot, called the Ohio Right to Make Reproductive Decisions Including Abortion Initiative. Ohio abortion activists want to establish a state constitutional right to “make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions,” including abortion, contraception, fertility treatment, and miscarriage care. The state would be banned from interfering with these decisions and from banning abortion when a doctor deems it necessary to protect a pregnant person’s life or health.
Ohio Republicans quickly got wind of abortion activists’ ballot initiative, since it went through the office of Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose. They hoped to squash it by getting Issue 1 on the state’s May ballot, but missed the filing deadline. That left November as the next available election, which would have been too late to potentially impact the abortion initiative. So Republicans introduced a resolution to hold a special election on Aug. 8, which easily passed given their supermajority in Ohio.
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, Ohio Republicans have been preparing to thwart efforts to build protections for reproductive rights into the state constitution.
Back in 2019, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed the “Human Rights Protection Act,” which bans abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected—usually around six weeks, with no exceptions for rape or incest. But it was short-lived, since abortion providers across Ohio immediately brought a lawsuit against DeWine’s law and a judge has temporarily blocked it from taking effect.
Since then, advocates have been organizing to try to claw back reproductive rights in Ohio. Two groups—Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom and Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights—came together to file language for a constitutional amendment protecting reproductive rights. By July, the groups had collected enough valid signatures and Ohio’s secretary of state approved the amendment, now set to appear on the November ballot. Ohio abortion rights advocates are hoping it finds success similar to that in Kansas, which voted 59 percent against a proposed state constitutional amendment that would have said there was no right to abortion in the state, and Michigan, where 56 percent of voters opted to create a state constitutional right to reproductive freedom.
But both Kansas’ and Michigan’s measures passed with under 60 percent of the vote, since their state laws only require a simple majority for passage. That’s also currently the standard in Ohio, which is why Republicans are gunning for Issue 1. In fact, they’ve been at the ready, as a letter to colleagues written by Ohio Rep. Brian Stewart revealed a concerted effort to raise Ohio’s vote threshold in order to prevent “a new scheme from an outside special interest group—almost always from the Left—designed to buy on the statewide ballot what they can’t persuade us to do in the legislature.”
LaRose himself testified late last year that any Ohio special election that took place in August was “wasteful and cost the taxpayers precious scarce resources.” He also said special elections have “embarrassingly low turnout” and therefore give a small handful of voters the power to make big decisions. Then in January, Gov. DeWine promptly signed a law eliminating most August elections, among other new election law changes.
But with abortion rights on the ballot in Ohio, Republicans decided that suddenly, a special election doesn’t sound so bad. DeWine publicly signaled he’d go along with a new bill brought by his fellow Republicans to reinstate an August special election in preparation for November’s abortion initiative.
“As a course of action, a normal course of doing business, yes, I do not believe in having elections in August as a normal way of holding elections. But if the state legislature decides to hold an election in August, it’s not unusual,” said LaRose, defending his about-face. It’s also worth noting that LaRose just announced his candidacy for Senate against incumbent Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown.
The special election has since turned into a national rallying point in the fight over abortion rights, drawing big donations. Richard Uihlein, an Illinois-based billionaire, donated $1 million in ads supporting Issue 1. At the same time, the Democratic political group Progress Action Fund is airing an ad where a white-haired Republican pops up in a couple’s bedroom just as one of them reaches for a condom. He quips, “Now that we’re in charge, we’re banning birth control.” The commercial ends with the message: “Keep Republicans out of your bedroom. Vote ‘No’ on Aug. 8.”
Early voting figures for Ohio’s special election have already surpassed expectations, with more than 116,000 people showing up for early voting and about 38,000 sending in absentee ballots. At this rate, Ohio could surpass its 2022 general election turnout. But so far it looks like Ohio voters are pretty evenly divided over Issue 1, with polling from Ohio Northern University showing about 42 percent of voters supporting the proposed amendment and 41 percent opposing it. When it comes to reproductive rights, a USA Today Network/Suffolk University poll showed 58 percent of Ohio voters support the abortion rights amendment, while 32 percent oppose it.
By SHIRIN ALI
