Bonita Springs Country Club, Articles H

Heres the latest for Tuesday, July 25th: Scientists link heat wave to climate change; Biden Administration sues Texas Governor over border barriers; North Korea launches short-range ballistic missiles; More protests in Israel over judicial reform plan. The City of Lorain would serve as a pilot program . Require citizens who want to place an amendment on the ballot to collect signatures from at least 5% of voters from the last gubernatorial election in all 88 counties, instead of the current 44.. The sponsors have also stated that they hope the General Assembly will approve the measure during the current lame duck session and submit it to the voters at the May 2, 2023 primary election. Ohio Constitution of 1851 | History, Reforms & Amendments - Study.com Forces looking to restrict Second Amendment rights or expand minimum wages costs on small businesses wont be far behind. July 25, 2023. Most states with geographic signature requirements set them by state legislative or congressional district. COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) A contingent of Statehouse Republicans in Ohio pressed forward Wednesday with their plan to make it harder to amend the state's constitution, an effort aimed most immediately at thwarting an abortion rights amendment in the works for this fall.. After months of consternation over the issue, identical resolutions cleared both Senate and House committees within hours of . Cookie Settings/Do Not Sell My Personal Information. We make sure theyre serious, because what makes it on the ballot, our members end up holding the bag, paying for the campaigns for or against these issues.. In Ohio, constitutional amendments can be proposed in three ways: First, the General Assembly can propose amendments, which require voter ratification. Applying similarly worded state constitutions, courts in Washington, Missouri, Maine, Massachusetts, and Michigan have all rejected attempts by their legislatures to undermine the initiative process.16 It is possible that a court in Ohio would do the same, but the prospect of legislative interference plainly reduces the attractiveness of initiated statutes relative to initiated amendments. Website feedback, questions or accessibility issues: web@law.wisc.edu. If submitted to the voters, the proposal would require only a simple majority vote for passage despite imposing a supermajority requirement on future initiated amendments. General Assembly Initiated Constitutional Amendment - Ohio Secretary of Learn more from the Ohio Secretary of State's Office. But theyve cast the new 88-county requirement as ensuring that Ohioans in all 88 counties have a voice when it comes to potential amendments to the state constitution. It also would eliminate a 10-day cure period during which amendment campaigns can collect additional signatures if their first batch falls short. Either way, this amendment demonstrates that Ohioans have already safeguarded the state constitution from special interests that might attempt to use the initiative process to further their financial gainand they did so in a tailored manner that does not encumber their core constitutional right of initiative. The measure, if voters approve it in August, would have profound implications for a potential abortion-rights amendment in November. Ohio voters will decide in November whether to amend their state Constitution to establish a right to abortion, after state officials said on Tuesday that proponents had submitted . More than half the worlds population sees AP journalism every day. Legislators have presumably avoided submitting referred amendments at odd-year primary elections because they recognize that such elections tend to have low turnout, and those who participate may not be representative of the broader electorate. There are two ways to add amendments to Ohio's constitution, both of which require a simple majority vote in a statewide referendum: the Ohio General Assembly can put an amendment on the. For a constitutional amendment, petitioners need a minimum number of signatures equal to at least 10% of the votes cast for governor statewide. Ohios current requirement that a certain amount of signatures be collected in half of the states counties is more in keeping with what other states require, Dinan said. 175 shares By Andrew J. Tobias, cleveland.com COLUMBUS, Ohio - Ohio would set some of the highest hurdles for citizen-initiated state constitutional amendments in the country if voters pass. But I dont think we can say for sure that states with more stringent geographic distributionrequirements see fewer successful ballot measures.. While some states have a higher overall requirement and some states have more challenging geographic distribution requirement, few states have a more challenging combination of the two. However, on Aug. 8, voters will decide in a special election whether to increase that threshold to 60% . http://archives.legislature.state.oh.us/res.cfm?ID=127_HJR_3. State Issue 1 backers have tended to focus on the part of State Issue 1 that raises the voter approval threshold from 50% to 60%. This peculiar logic led one legal expert to describe the proposal as a solution in search of a problem., Secretary LaRose suggested that supermajority requirements for initiated amendments like his proposal are common, but only three of the 18 states with a constitutional initiative process have comparable requirements: Colorado requires an initiated amendment to receive 55% voter approval for passage;6 Florida requires 60% voter approval;7 and Illinois requires 60% approval for the measure or a majority of those voting in the election (not just on the measure itself).8. Secretary of State Frank LaRose said Tuesday that supporters have collected enough signatures to place the amendment on the ballot for November. The most recent amendments to the Ohio Constitution were approved by voters in 2022. Ohio already has some of the countrys most challenging ballot access requirements for initiatives. Text of Section 1: How Constitution to Be Amended; Ballot; Supreme Court to Hear Challenges. None of the three currently require that signatures come from 100% of the counties. Abortion messaging roils debate over Ohio ballot initiative. Backers The amendment would need a 2/3 approval of the Republican-led General Assembly in order to go to the ballot. A 60% threshold proposed in State Issue 1 would significantly increase the protection of the Ohio Constitution. Ohio Constitution changes: A 67,000-word document just keeps growing If the General Assembly does not take any action on the proposal within the four-month period, which would typically expire in early May, or if they approve it in an amended form, the petitioners can then circulate a second (supplementary) petition to demand that the proposal be submitted to the voters. Article I, Ohio Constitution - Ballotpedia They were for it before they were against it. It is unclear whether the Ohio Constitution would allow such meddling with initiated statutes. Finally, the proposals sponsors seek to place their measure on the ballot at an odd-year primary election when voter turnout is historically at its lowest. Because the 44-county rule in essence dilutes larger county residents ability to propose constitutional changes, some at times have raised concerns that the geographic-based requirement violates federal one person, one vote principles. LaRose, State Rep. Stewart propose change to amendments - Spectrum News 299 shares By Andrew J. Tobias, cleveland.com COLUMBUS, Ohio - Leading up to the special election in August, Ohio voters will hear arguments about how easy or hard it is to amend the state's. It is not difficult to imagine scenarios where the General Assembly would choose to disregard the results of a voter-approved initiative, particularly one that seeks to constrain the General Assemblys own authority. 60% approval would protect Ohio's constitution | Opinion Ohio State Constitution 1802 Constitution The Ohio territory's population grew steadily in the 1790s and early 19th century. Based on the committees recommendations, Rep. Glenn Holmes, a Democrat, then co-sponsored a resolution in 2018 to raise the threshold to 60%. It did not recommend requiring signatures be collected from all 88 Ohio counties to get an issue on the ballot or eliminating time to make up for bad signatures. [1] The 1901 constitution was amended 977 times, including constitutional amendments of local applicability. establish voter registration requirements, allow counties to exercise home rule powers, establish a right to health care services, establish certain rights for crime victims, Cleveland State University College of Law. The ballot initiative process allows citizens to propose statutes or constitutional amendments, depending on the state, and collect signatures to place their proposals on the ballot for voters to decide. It banned any statewide prohibition of alcohol sales and established local control of the same. Notably, voters in Arkansas just rejected a proposal to impose a 60% supermajority requirement for initiated amendments, and in 2018, South Dakotans rejected a similar proposal to impose a 55% supermajority requirement. of State Frank LaRose 'wouldn't be surprised' by low turnout, 8 reasons for why Issue 1 is wrong for all Ohioans, even conservatives, Letters: Stop the gaslighting. We believe the best way to do that is by increasing the threshold necessary for passage, consistent with a number of other states and the consensus required to amend the U.S. Constitution.. Issue 1 would affect all proposals to amend Ohio's constitution Three states Arkansas, Nebraska and Ohio require signatures to be collected from a certain number of counties. In short, the supermajority proposal would make Ohio an outlier among direct democracy states in requiring a 60% supermajority for passage of any initiated constitutional amendment. v Union Elec. Republican Gov. Ohio to vote on constitutional amendment legalizing abortion in November True to the Ohio Supreme Courts early prediction, the mere prospect of citizens taking matters into their own hands has also repeatedly prompted lawmakers to enact policies that had otherwise been stalled. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose and State Representative Brian Stewart recently introduced a proposal that asks Ohio voters to limit their own power to amend the state's constitution. Ohio GOP proposal require more votes to change Ohio constitution The result of these two deadlines is that if petitioners want to submit their proposed statute to the voters during the same year it was considered by the General Assembly, then they have to cut short their already limited window to circulate the supplementary petition by about 30 days. The vitriol is more than two-faced, it gets personal. There are many other rules that petitioners must follow or risk having to start over. As of January, Ohio was one of 17 U.S. states that currently allow citizens to propose constitutional amendments, according to research that Dinan, the Wake Forest professor, compiled for the Council of State Governments, a nonpartisan trade group. Citizen-Initiated Constitutional Amendment If a citizen feels that an issue is not addressed properly (or at all) in the Ohio Constitution, he or she can follow the procedures outlined in the Ohio Constitution and Revised Code (below) to submit a proposed constitutional amendment to the people of Ohio for a statewide vote.