EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was written in response to a reader-submitted request through Open Source, a platform where readers can ask Richland Source’s newsroom to investigate a question.
MANSFIELD — Should it be tougher to amend the Ohio Constitution now that abortion is being left up to individual states to decide?
That’s the basic question voters will decide Aug. 8 during a statewide special election.
State Issue 1 gives voters a chance to make amending the constitution more difficult — just three months before a pro-choice group plans to have its own amendment issue on the ballot.
Those supporting and opposing Issue 1 are spending a great deal of time and millions of dollars to sway more than eight million registered voters who will have a chance to participate in the decision.
It’s going to be a tough fight either way.
According to a late June survey conducted by Scripps News/YouGov, 58 percent of voters support abortion protection ideas in the November ballot amendment issue.
In that same poll, however, 38 percent said they supported Issue 1’s proposal to make changing the constitution harder with 37 percent disagreeing and 26 percent unsure.
The margin of error, according to pollsters, is 5.95 percent.
The timing of Ohio lawmakers in putting the issue on the August ballot is not lost on anyone. It’s a scenario that’s been playing out in states around the country for a year.
It’s all about abortion, an issue the U.S. Supreme Court left to individual states to decide for themselves when it overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, ending a 50-year federal precedent.
While some Republicans have said Issue 1 is not just about abortion, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose made his intentions clear during a speaking event to Seneca County Republicans in May.
“This is 100 percent about keeping a radical pro-abortion amendment out of our constitution,” said LaRose, who is considering a run for the U.S. Senate in 2024.
“The left wants to jam it in there this coming November,” LaRose told the party faithful.
Voters and state lawmakers across the country have been busy since the high court’s decision in the case titled Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
According to a story published in June by The Center for American Progress, within 100 days of the Dobbs decision, “nearly 22 million women of reproductive age — almost 1 in 3 women — found themselves living in states where abortion was unavailable or severely restricted.”
The CAP article cited work done by the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks state-level abortion legislation, that said various state legislators in 2022 introduced 563 provisions to restrict access to abortion.
The institute said 50 of those restrictions were signed into law last year.
As a result, 20 states have either outright banned or tightened abortion laws since the Dobbs decision, according to the CAP story.
The deadline to register for the Aug. 8 special election is July 10, according to Richland County Board of Elections Director Matt Finfgeld.
Finfgeld said the local Board of Election will be open July 10 until 9 p.m. for residents wishing to register, or change their address or name, for the special election.
The office is located at 1495 W. Longview Ave., Suite 101, in the Longview Center.
After 4 p.m., residents must use the entrance at the lower level back parking area at the southwest corner of the building.
Qualifications for registering to vote include:
— must be either a native U. S. citizen or a naturalized citizen of the U.S.
— must be a resident of The State of Ohio 30 days before an Election
Registered voters who have moved or changed their name must notify the board office in writing or in person.
Voters currently registered in Ohio may change their address online at VoteOhio.gov, but must do so by the July 10 deadline. Online registration is also now available at VoteOhio.gov
Ohio lawmakers had passed a near complete ban on abortion in 2019, a move that was halted by a federal court shortly after it took effect following the Dobbs decision.
Currently, abortion is legal in Ohio up to about 22 weeks of pregnancy, a law that the group Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom hopes to change with its own citizen-initiative drive.
The group announced Wednesday it filed petitions with 700,000 signatures to place its constitutional amendment on the ballot in November that would codify abortion access.
That proposal will relax abortion restrictions, make it more patient-physician oriented and prevent the state from interfering in a woman’s right to an abortion before fetus viability, which is around 24 weeks according to the National Institutes of Health.
The organization needs about 400,000 valid voter signatures for its initiative to make the ballot. County boards have until July 20 to vet the signatures for the secretary of state, who then has until July 25 to make the final call regarding putting the issue on the November ballot.
Here is how it’s playing out in Ohio now:
— In December 2022, the Republican-controlled General Assembly passed a bill to eliminate August special elections, saying ending it would save taxpayers’ money.
— In March, the pro-choice groups had their ballot language certified and began circulating petitions.
— In May, those same GOP-led lawmakers voted to put the amendment on the ballot in August — staging the same kind of special election they had chosen to eliminate a few months earlier.
The change of heart from Republican lawmakers was clear to see.
Under the current Ohio Constitution, it takes a simple majority of voters to amend the document, first approved in 1851.
If approved by a majority of voters in August, changing the state constitution will require 60 percent statewide approval.
That 60 percent figure has gained a great deal of public and media attention as the sides duel politically.
But it would also require anyone circulating petitions to propose a constitutional ballot issue to gain the signatures of at least 5 percent of registered voters in every one of Ohio’s 88 counties.
The current requirement is that those signatures come from at least 44 counties.
That change has not gotten as much attention, but it certainly changes the rules of the game when it comes to amending Ohio’s Constitution.
It also would eliminate a 10-day “cure period” during which amendment campaigns can collect additional signatures if their first batch falls short.
Keep in mind — Issue 1, if approved, will codify the change in the state constitution for any proposed amendments going forward.
Supporters include Republican lawmakers and other statewide elected officials, as well as groups like the Ohio Farm Bureau, the Buckeye Firearms Association.
They maintain the amendment is needed to big-money, special interest groups coming from outside the state seeking to easily change Ohio’s founding document.
Supporters maintain the state’s constitution is the essential framework of the state and changing it should be harder to do.
Some have cited what the founding fathers required for changes to the U.S. Constitution. To amend it requires a 2/3 vote of both chambers of Congress and a vote of 3/4 of state legislatures.
“Our Founding Fathers ensured that the United States Constitution would be protected against outside influence and special interests by requiring a supermajority vote for amendments,” Rep. Brian Stewart (R-Ashville) said when he proposed the amendment in January.
“We can and should protect the Ohio Constitution in a similar way.”
Opponents of the amendment, which include statehouse Democrats, 250 unions and community groups, and a bipartisan coalition of former governors, say the amendment is “undemocratic” and would allow 40 percent of Ohioans to block the majority’s will.
A group called One Person, One Vote has formed to oppose the bill, claiming it is “a citizen-driven, grassroots, non-partisan coalition representing millions of Ohio voters that have come together to protect the sacred principle of one person one vote, and preserve majority rule in Ohio.”
They point out the current requirements to amend the Ohio Constitution have been in place for more than a century and changes are now being only sought with abortion on the political table in the state.
Former Gov. Bob Taft, a Republican, opposes Issue 1 and said two key amendments made during his administration — the Clean Ohio Fund and Third Frontier Project — did not get 60 percent voter approval.
“Both measures have stood the test of time, contributing importantly to the economy and quality of life of our state,” Taft wrote in a letter in April.
In June, two dozen northeast Ohio business leaders signed a letter opposing Issue 1, calling it an “ill-conceived ballot issue,” according to a Cleveland.com story.
“In an act of desperation, the Ohio legislature overreached and rushed through a constitutional amendment proposal that would upend Ohio’s process for amending its constitution,” leaders wrote in the letter.
