GOP wants to crush your voting power to make it harder to restore abortion rights| Suddes

Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University. tsuddes@gmail.com

“Unfair, undemocratic and unpopular and [it] will silence the voices of everyday Ohioans” – that’s what more than 140 Ohio consumer, good-government and labor organizations say about a plan, backed by Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose, to make it harder for the state’s voters to amend the Ohio Constitution.

Suspicious minds might have added that the LaRose plan could also make it tougher for pro-choice Ohioans to regain and protect women’s access to abortion, which the General Assembly has virtually barred with the help of June’s Dobbs decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.

That decision gave states power to forbid abortion, which, Ohio, through its so-called heartbeat bill, arguably does.

Thomas Suddes:'Democrats are an endangered species in Ohio politics'

Currently, Ohio voters must muster a simple majority vote — 50% plus one — to OK constitutional amendments, whether an amendment is proposed by voter petition or by General Assembly.

LaRose wants to require a 60% majority vote for constitutional amendments that voters propose by petition. (Amendments proposed by the General Assembly would still require only a simple statewide majority vote — 50% plus one.)

LaRose says he wants to make it harder for special interests to hijack the constitution, something he implies the 50% plus one requirement allows.

In fact, Ohio voters in 2015 backstopped the constitution against monopoly schemes.

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But maybe what House Joint Resolution 6 – the proposed 60% requirement – really aims for is making it harder for Ohioans to restore access to abortion by a petition-initiated amendment. And such an amendment is likely to surface sometime in the next year or so.

The sponsor of House Joint Resolution 6 – the 60% requirement – is Republican Rep. Brian Stewart, of Pickaway County’s Ashville, whose district encompasses Pickaway and Madison counties, and part of Franklin County.

Since the Supreme Court ruled in June, voters in six states have faced ballot issues that would either guarantee abortion rights or limit or end them. In each of the states, voters chose to uphold or protect access to abortion.

In August, Kansas voters rejected a bid to restrict abortion in that state; the “no” vote – that is, the winning pro-abortion-access vote – comprised 59% of those voting on the question.

Then in November, voters in five more states protected abortion rights or rejected proposals to limit or end them.

In two of those states (California and Vermont), both emphatically liberal, the winning, pro-abortion-access side drew big margins: 67% of the vote (California) and 73% in Vermont.

In the other three November tallies, the pro-choice side won 56.7% of the vote (Michigan); 52.4% (in Kentucky); and 52.6% (in Montana).

Could it be that the real aim of the 60% majority requirement proposed by House Joint Resolution 6 – backed by LaRose – is to derail any attempt by Ohioans to restore, by a ballot issue, a Roe v. Wade standard for abortion in Ohio?

In that connection, consider this: A Baldwin Wallace University Pulse Poll of 867 Ohio registered voters (conducted from Sept. 30 to Oct. 3) found that 59% of those polled said “yes” when asked if they “would vote yes or no on a constitutional amendment to make the right to abortion a fundamental right in Ohio.”

That’s 1 percentage point short of the 60% winning margin that House Joint Resolution 6 would require for voter-initiated constitutional amendments in Ohio.

More:Most Americans want chance to support abortion rights on state ballot, USA TODAY/Ipsos poll finds

If, as LaRose says, his sincere goal is to fetter special interests from hijacking Ohio’s government, then perhaps he’d consider supporting fully disclosed, publicly posted lobbying information, such as what California’s law requires, which could at least help Ohio taxpayers see what they’re really up against at the Statehouse.

Right to marry

MEANWHILE: A tip of the hat to Sen. Rob Portman, a Terrace Park Republican, and Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Cleveland Democrat, for helping pass the congressional Respect for Marriage bill Tuesday.

More:Senate passes landmark legislation protecting same-sex marriage rights: recap

It requires states to recognize, as valid, marriages solemnized in other states regardless of the partners’ sex, race, or ethnicity.

Portman, who has a gay son, was one of only 12 Senate Republicans to vote “yes” on the measure, which is expected to land on President Biden’s desk this week.

Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University. tsuddes@gmail.com

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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Opinion: What is House Joint Resolution 6? How is it connected to abortion rights?