The Ohio Statehouse, Columbus, Ohio. (Photo by Graham Stokes for the Ohio Capital Journal. Republish photo only with original story.)
In the mad rush to cram through culture war nonsense in the Ohio Statehouse before Dec. 31 — as opposed to important stuff like property tax relief or childcare support — a bill in the Ohio Senate was floated not as must-pass lame duck legislation but as an idea to explore. So, let’s. Cincinnati Republican Lou Blessing’s conversation-starter was presented as a compromise of sorts for voters compelled to circumvent the legislature with citizen initiatives at the ballot box.
The GOP state senator promoted his Senate Joint Resolution 5 as a way to ostensibly entice more citizen initiatives for voter-proposed laws instead of for constitutional amendments. Blessing suggested the latter option, or “legislating through the state constitution” had gotten out of hand as the go-to approach by citizens rightfully leery of lawmakers repealing their citizen-initiated statutes.
He argued SJR5 would make “it easier for citizens to amend the Ohio Revised Code and harder for the General Assembly to amend any sections for a period of time should the initiated statute pass at the ballot.” The resolution, Blessing said, represented an “off-ramp” for citizens faced with the far more arduous task and signature requirements of constitutional initiatives. “It cuts the signature thresholds in half and simplifies the process.”
But Blessing’s pitch is a play akin to the guy on the corner pulling the ball and cup scam to snag gullible passersby. Just like the shell game on the street, the lawmaker’s gambit to dissuade citizens from amending their constitution relies on sleight of hand and misdirection. Blessing appears to offer citizens an easy win on voter-proposed laws with less required signatures overall and a prohibition to stop lawmakers from quickly reversing citizen statutes that pass at the polls.
The con is the last part of the equation. Blessing’s bill purports to block lawmakers from changing or repealing laws initiated and approved by a majority of voters for two years — unless three-fifths of legislators and the governor concur. That’s the illusion. Ask the guy with three cups on the ground taking bets on which one the ball is under when it really went into his palm. Republicans gerrymandered themselves into supermajorities in the legislature to wield control, not cede power to citizen-led reforms.
A month after 57% of Ohioans voted to legalize recreational marijuana in the state, Republicans in the Ohio Senate, including Blessing, proposed vast changes to the citizen-initiated law. GOP senators simply ignored the will of voters in 2023 with plans to gut key provisions of Issue 2 and rewrite the statute with wholesale revisions and restrictions days before the law was set to take effect.
Senate opponents of legalized weed hurried to stymie its implementation not with statutory tweaks but with a corrective overhaul that would, among other things, ban homegrown pot, reduce legal possession amounts, lower the THC levels, increase the tax on cannabis products and alter how those taxes got distributed.
Senate Democrats blasted their Republicans colleagues for trying to override the clear wishes of constituents. The Senate GOP alternative to Issue 2 bore little resemblance to the statute Ohioans overwhelmingly approved. “The voters’ intent is nowhere to be found,” complained state Sen. Bill DeMora, a Columbus Democrat, before a modified measure passed in the Senate only to stall in the House.
When Ohioans voted to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution by an equally overwhelming majority, Ohio Senate Republicans immediately signaled their resolve to dismiss what 57% of voters demanded with a prospective ballot repeal, a 15-week abortion ban, or usurped judicial jurisdiction on abortion law. Even now, Republican Attorney General Dave Yost continues to blow taxpayer money on endless litigation to retain parts of Ohio’s draconian six-week abortion ban that Ohioans soundly rejected.
Even now, state Republicans continue to marshal their entrenched, gerrymandered power to thwart direct democracy in Ohio. They just defeated an anti-gerrymandering citizens’ initiative last month with brazen anti-democratic tactics by top GOP officials, i.e., approving grossly misleading ballot language (allowed by the Republican majority on the state supreme court) to deliberately confuse voters and sink an otherwise popular referendum.
Last year Ohio Republicans attacked the majority power of our vote to amend the state constitution through direct democracy. The failed plot was laid to derail a subsequent citizens’ initiative to protect abortion access in the state. But there will be a next time. Another people-powered ballot campaign will threaten the GOP’s tyrannical grip on the state and the party will mobilize to undermine it.
The flimflam operators in the Statehouse who hold forth on inane bathroom bills, Bible study school breaks and waging war against everything “woke” haven’t changed — and the ball isn’t under the cup. Blessing’s Senate resolution to discourage citizens from enshrining policies Ohioans support in the constitution — where the Republican-dominated legislature can’t directly revise or repeal them — isn’t an olive branch to citizens who want to change their government.
It’s a shell game where the gerrymandered supermajorities in the Ohio House and Ohio Senate always win. Citizen-initiated statutes passed by majority vote can and will be dismantled by unscrupulous legislative dealers. Proof is the marijuana policy voters put in the Ohio Revised Code that Ohio Republicans just vowed again to undo in 2025.
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