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An Ohio House Joint Resolution that would make it more difficult for citizen-driven changes to the state's constitution to become law was introduced last month.
It would cut the time frame for collecting signatures by four months; require 60 percent of the vote, rather than 50 percent of the vote, to pass the initiative; and create a new rule stating petition signatures expire after 180 days.
Issues frequently appear on Ohio ballots because groups with money and manpower have the wherewithal to collect signatures to test ideas using Ohio as the bellwether for U.S. political policy.
Interest groups, many of them from out of state, almost annually try to circumvent the state legislature, gathering hundreds of thousands of signatures trying to convince voters to change Ohio's constitution.
"Moneyed interests have realized that if you have enough money to pay people to go get signatures, you can tinker with the state's foundational document," Ohio Senate president Larry Obhoff said recently.
A bill co-sponsor, Glenn Holmes, D-Girard, said he, too, believes many ballot measures are attempts to circumvent the legislative process.
I agree. And in other cases, I believe threatened attempts for future ballot initiatives also often drives legislatures to speed up bill passage to head off what lawmakers suspect could be problematic ballot initiatives. Sure, sometimes it's not a bad thing for the typically slow-moving cogs of government to churn a bit faster. But that also brings a danger that frenzied attempts are poorly written or poorly debated.
I wrote this about the topic here about six months ago:
After Ohio voters in 2015 defeated a constitutional amendment to legalize both medical and recreational marijuana, the state legislature picked up the pace in 2016 to legalize medical marijuana. Lawmakers did that in hope of heading off repeat attempts at wide-ranging ballot initiatives that could have legalized both medical and recreational marijuana.
But now, approaching three years later, state officials missed the deadline spelled out in the legislation, and Ohio's medical marijuana program still has not officially kicked off. These implementation efforts are being watched closely by those still hoping to reinitiate attempts at ballot initiatives legalizing recreational marijuana.
Of course, there is opposition to the ballot initiatives bill. (I read some of that criticism sent by a reader after my column on this topic was published in July.)
Testimony from the Humane Society of the United States said this: "These proposed changes will make it nearly impossible for everyday Ohioans to participate in citizen-initiated ballot meaures and dishonors those who fought so hard in 1912 to give Ohioans this right."
"Direct democracy" is the people's "safety valve," ensuring lawmakers aren't "only listening to donors and lobbyists," states testimony from Mia Lewis with Common Cause Ohio.
Some opponents of the resolution also argue that increasing the difficulty of getting an issue on the ballot would make it harder for regular Ohioans to do so, all but guaranteeing only moneyed interests have the resources to mount successful campaigns.
Holmes acknowledges that is a concern, and he's hoping that debate might unearth a solution. But really, doesn't big money already drive many of the ballot initiatives?
Wasn't it big money that drove successful efforts to legalize Ohio casino gambling through a ballot measure amending the state constitution and limiting operation of casinos to a handful of companies specifically spelled out? And certainly, it is big money that was pushing the legalization of medical marijuana. Yes, it failed at the polls, but I suspect big money won't wait long to try again, this time pushing to legalize recreational marijuana.
Holmes, a Democrat who took some heat recently for reaching across the aisle -- albeit temporarily -- on Ohio's attempt to greatly limit women's access to abortion, is likely to receive more heat on this mostly Republican-led measure.
I hope this time he stands his ground.