President Joe Biden. (Photo by Jonathan Ernst – Pool/Getty Images)
The Democratic Party is set to nominate President Joe Biden to be on Ohio’s ballot after a month of controversy, Ohio Senate Democratic leadership said Tuesday.
“The Biden campaign is going to make an announcement today that they have a path to put Joe Biden on the ballot working through the Democrats and the Democratic National Committee to assure that Joe Biden is on the ballot,” Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio said.
DNC Chair Jaime Harrison said the party will use a virtual roll call, which would have to take place ahead of its Aug. 19 convention in Chicago and before Ohio’s Aug. 7 deadline to certify the ballot. There is a precedent for this. A virtual roll call was held in 2020 because of the pandemic.
“Joe Biden will be on the ballot in Ohio and all 50 states, and Ohio Republicans agree,” said Harrison, “but when the time has come for action, they have failed to act every time, so Democrats will land this plane on our own.”
This comes as the lawmakers in Ohio entered their first day of a special session called by the governor to fix this problem.
Ohio requires parties to confirm their presidential candidates 90 days before the Nov. election, which would be Aug. 7. But Biden won’t be the official nominee until the Democratic National Convention, which is on Aug. 19.
How did we get here?
Here is a timeline.
April 5: LaRose’s legal team emailed Statehouse Democratic leadership and Ohio Democratic Party Chairperson Liz Walters that there was “an apparent conflict” between the nominating deadline and the DNC event, according to an email I obtained.
April 6-16: For the following weeks, lawmakers went back and forth on what to do.
April 17: Ultimately, Republicans agreed to actively help the Democrats by making sure Biden was on the ballot.
May 7: A House committee passed their bipartisan ballot fix proposal out of committee.
They completely stripped and amended Senate Bill 92 making it a clean bill. It changed the nomination deadline to 74 days, which is Aug. 23. This would likely be a permanent fix. It also allowed for less formal declarations of candidate nomination.
The main reason why lawmakers often choose to amend bills at the last minute is due to timing. By revising an already passed piece of legislation, one that typically is ready to be passed by the second chamber, the lawmakers fast-track the process of getting it to the governor.
“It enables the notification to be a lot more flexible, whether it’s email or whatever,” Stephens said about his bill. “This gives the flexibility.”
This doesn’t just help the Democrats, Stephens added.
“Just four years ago, we had this issue,” the speaker said. “The party in power in the White House usually goes last for the convention, so hopefully this will take care of that issue.”
Russo, who has a good relationship with Stephens, was pleased.
“I think everyone agreed this is good for democracy,” Russo said. “We want people to have full access to the ballot, and that’s good for both parties.”
May 8: The Senate passed H.B. 114 out of the chamber. It changed the nominating deadline from Aug. 7 to Aug. 23 — but only for 2024, so it wasn’t a permanent fix.
The lawmakers also added in S.B. 215, a campaign finance bill. In early March, Republican senators passed legislation meant to stop foreign donations to state and local ballot-issue campaigns. This could be by directly donating from outside the country or by donating to an entity, like a political action committee (PAC).
“Most Ohioans would agree that we shouldn’t have foreign dollars affecting our ballot initiatives,” Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman, R-Lima, said. “Foreign money needs to be out of these statewide elections.”
The Senate’s additions were unacceptable to the Democrats, Antonio said.
“The language that has been embedded into 114 is yet another attempt to try to silence the voters of Ohio when they disagree with the supermajority of Republicans and go on their own to put together a ballot initiative,” Antonio said.
It has provisions that could make it harder for grassroots movements to get on the ballot — even with U.S. dollars.
It would require all groups rallying for a cause that is receiving donations and spending money to register as a PAC. This means that groups would have to file disclosures with the government, and it could make it more difficult to collect signatures to get a proposal on a township ballot.
The bill also prohibits a lawful permanent U.S. resident, also known as a green card holder, from making contributions or expenditures regarding ballot issues or candidates.
All the Senate Democrats voted no because of S.B. 215. Still, it passed 24-7.
“Republicans in both the House and the Senate aren’t going to vote for a standalone Biden bill,” Huffman said, defending why he put the bills all together.
Across the Statehouse, the House “informally passed” its version of the Biden fix, S.B. 92. This means it stays on the calendar but doesn’t actually pass and isn’t put up for a vote. It can be brought up for a vote at a later date.
The Senate sent over their bill to the House, who ignored it.
“We had those conversations and ended up not doing it today,” Stephens said about not concurring.
May 20: House lawmakers introduced H.B. 609. The bill prohibits the committee in charge of a statewide initiative or referendum petition from asking for or knowingly accepting money from a foreign entity or person. It also declares the bill as an emergency.
This bill has bipartisan support, as it doesn’t have significant negative impacts on local community members, House Minority Whip Dani Isaacsohn (D-Cincinnati) said.
May 22: When the Senate saw that the House wasn’t taking their bait with H.B. 114, they amended yet another bill to further their elimination of foreign contributions in state ballot campaigns.
H.B. 305, when it comes to campaign finance, does relatively the same as S.B. 215 and H.B. 114.
May 23: DeWine staged a surprise evening press conference, calling for a special session.
“This is an extraordinary situation when we have [a] ridiculous situation that we have not taken action to deal with a problem,” DeWine said.
Session will last from Tuesday through the special voting session on Thursday.
Siding with the Senate, the governor urged the House to take up any of their three bills. However, his proclamation did state that legislators can also consider S.B. 92. He did not include H.B. 609, but the document states that lawmakers can review “other similar legislation effectuating this purpose.”
The House leaders — both Democrats like Isaacsohn and Republicans like Stephens — continue to say that it isn’t the foreign interference ban that they are rejecting; it is the new restrictions to access to the ballot for citizens.
Stephens says he is willing to compromise — by making sure that a bill doesn’t “limit the rights of citizens to have their voices heard.”
“For weeks, we have been pushing to find a legislative solution to having President Biden on the ballot. Ultimately, the will to do so wasn’t there in the Republican caucus,” Stephens said. “Everyone agrees that we need to ban foreign political contributions from ballot issue campaigns in Ohio, and we have been driving towards a solution. We have language that has input from campaign finance experts and important interested parties to deal with the issue. This is language that squarely and directly bans foreign influence in Ohio’s issue campaigns, while not also inadvertently limiting the rights of citizens to have their voices heard. We look forward to real solutions that will actually pass both chambers next week and solve problems.”
Follow WEWS statehouse reporter Morgan Trau on X and Facebook.
This article was originally published on News5Cleveland.com and is published in the Ohio Capital Journal under a content-sharing agreement. Unlike other OCJ articles, it is not available for free republication by other news outlets as it is owned by WEWS in Cleveland.
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