Breaking Down Ohio's Issue 1
Part 1: How We Got Here
Last December, the Ohio House committee advanced a measure to raise the threshold for constitutional amendments to 60% instead of the current 50% + 1. Five months later, both the Ohio House and Senate approved the resolution mostly along party lines (almost all Republicans being “for” and all Democrats being “against”). As a result, a special election will be held in Ohio on Aug. 8 to see if voters want to make it harder to amend the state constitution.
A dry but necessary history lesson
The current Ohio constitution was adopted in 1851. During a constitutional convention in 1912, substantial revisions were approved.
The state constitution has been amended 172 times, including in 2022, when voters approved two amendments:
1.) Requiring judges to "use factors such as public safety, including the seriousness of the offense, and a person's criminal record" when setting amounts and conditions of bail
2.) Prohibiting local governments from allowing persons who lack the qualifications of an elector, including citizenship, to vote in local elections.
Citizen initiatives, legislatively referred constitutional amendments and constitutional conventions are the three processes by which an amendment can be proposed to the state constitution.
Ohio has used a simple majority to amend the constitution since 1912, when residents approved it by a vote of 271,827 to 246,687. Those voting against the measure wanted the state to continue to require that a constitutional amendment had to receive a majority of total votes cast in the election in order to pass. In other words, if someone voted on other issues on a ballot but didn’t vote on an amendment, that was counted as a “no” vote.
Back to the issue at hand
According to BallotPedia, if Issue 1 passes in Ohio on Aug. 8, it would:
increase the voter approval threshold for new constitutional amendments to 60%
require citizen-initiated constitutional amendment campaigns to collect signatures from each of the state's 88 counties, an increase from half (44) of the counties
eliminate the cure period of 10 days for campaigns to gather additional signatures for citizen-initiated constitutional amendments when the original submission did not have enough valid signatures.
Supporters of Issue 1 say that this is about safeguarding Ohio’s Constitution from special interest groups, especially those from outside the state. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, said, “The Ohio Constitution is supposed to serve as a framework of our state government, not as a tool for special interests. If you have a good idea and feel it deserves to be within the framework of our government, it should require the same standard for passage that we see in both our United States Constitution and here in our own state legislature. Requiring a broad consensus majority of at least 60% for passing a petition-based constitutional amendment provides a good-government solution to promote compromise.”
(A recent report found that out-of-state donors accounted for more than 80% of the $32.35 million raised on both sides of the issue.)
Opponents of Issue 1 note that Ohio Republicans did away with August special elections last year because they cost a lot of money and usually result in low voter turnout. The about-face by Republicans to now demand a special election has not gone over well with Democrats.
In an opinion piece published on cleveland.com, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, a Democrat, wrote, “Essentially, Issue 1 attacks a deeply embedded tradition in Ohio giving us a critical check on our elected leaders and the power to put forward critical measures to help our state become an even better place to live, work, and raise a family.”
He added, “A new supermajority standard would have a dramatic impact in Ohio. Previous voter-enacted amendments, that are essential to Ohioans, would never have become law because they would have been blocked by a minority of dissenting voters. These include expanding access to affordable housing, building infrastructure, raising the minimum wage, and granting home rule authority to cities so they can govern in the best interests of their unique communities.”