GOP arrogance festers with Issue 1 reaction, abortion ballot language

Matt Huffman wants to try again. At least, that was the thinking of the Ohio Senate president last month, shortly after voters emphatically rejected a statewide ballot issue orchestrated by Huffman, Frank LaRose, the secretary of state, and fellow Republicans in charge of the legislature.

The proposed constitutional amendment would have required a supermajority to win passage of citizen-initiated constitutional amendments, setting the threshold at 60% rather than the current 50% plus one.

Huffman told reporters he would launch a redo “perhaps not in the same kind of atmosphere as we have had over the past 10 or 12 months.” He had in mind the fallout from the U.S. Supreme Court overturning five decades of precedent involving the right of women to choose abortion. Statehouse Republicans clearly aimed to thwart the citizen effort to secure that right in the state constitution.

They failed. In November, Ohioans will get the chance to protect reproductive rights, with a simple majority enough to see Issue 1 prevail.

And the next time Republicans pursue a supermajority requirement?

Maybe the absence of a heightened abortion issue will lead them to focus more consistently on their strongest argument — preventing the state constitution from becoming cluttered with amendments, or, put another way, from changes that are better achieved through statutes, by lawmakers enacting laws.

Statutes are easier to repair. Doing the same for a constitutional amendment requires going back to voters, and all the process involves. That gets to worries about special interests exploiting the system. They may win passage of a favorable amendment and then benefit from the challenge in making a necessary fix, when experience leads to regret.

LaRose highlighted the U.S. Constitution, with its high bar for approving changes and relatively few amendments. Yet the comparison goes just so far. States work, famously, as laboratories of democracy, where ideas and innovations are explored. A century ago, Ohio adopted the citizen-initiated constitutional amendment and other changes in response to the abusive rule of monopolies and the corruption infecting state government.

Ohioans needed something more than electing lawmakers and other officials to represent their interests. They gained a direct voice in setting priorities and enacting laws.

The situation is similar today. The path of statutes works well — as long as the legislature is truly representative.

That isn’t the case now. Maureen O’Connor, the recently retired chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, rightly describes Ohio as “one of the country’s most gerrymandered states.”

Republicans hold massive majorities at the Statehouse, far out of line with the votes they have won. In total, they typically receive 54% of the vote, yet their legislative majorities exceed two-thirds.

Consider that Republicans had little problem forming a supermajority to put their proposed amendment on the August ballot. Then, the measure got clobbered at the polls, 57% saying not for us.

Without such a severely gerrymandered legislature, the August ballot issue likely would not have happened.

During the most recent round of redistricting, a 4-3 majority of the Ohio Supreme Court repeatedly found the maps drawn by Republicans in violation of a new process that had been approved overwhelmingly by voters. Huffman and allies thumbed their noses.

That kind of arrogance surfaced recently when the Ohio Ballot Board, chaired by LaRose, approved language for the abortion rights measure on the November ballot. During the meeting, LaRose noted his own work on the wording, and perfunctorily nodded to the nonpartisan nature of the task. Yet his Republican majority couldn’t resist adding a partisan edge.

For instance, they substituted “unborn child” for the more scientifically accurate “fetus.” They also cast aside “a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions.” Instead, they went with “an individual right to one’s own reproductive medical treatment.” In doing so, they blurred the core purpose of the proposal — to protect choice, the defining decisions women make across a range of matters from contraception to fertility treatment and abortion.

Such fiddling won’t change the substance of the amendment if voters give their approval. The episode does recall those revealing words of Matt Huffman: “We can kind of do what we want.”

It also highlights how the abortion amendment is just the next step for Ohio voters. In 2024 comes the battle over redistricting reform, focused on a proposal advanced by a group called Citizens Not Politicians, with Maureen O’Connor among its leaders. The measure seeks to end extreme gerrymandering by giving the job of redistricting to an independent commission.

Michigan, Arizona and other states have seen improved representation through this approach. Thus, only after making such a move, and reaping the desired outcome, would it make sense for Ohio to talk again about raising the approval threshold for citizen-initiated constitutional amendments.

Douglas was the Beacon Journal editorial page editor from 1999 to 2019. He can be reached at mddouglasmm@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Arrogance of Huffman, LaRose continues unabated after Issue 1 rout