Suddes: Panicked Ohio Republicans willing to strangle democracy to stymie abortion rights

Thomas Suddes
·4 min read
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Jan. 31, 2023; Columbus, Ohio, USA; Senate President Matt Huffman addresses those in attendance for the State of the State address at the Ohio Statehouse on Tuesday. Mandatory Credit: Barbara J. Perenic/Columbus Dispatch
Jan. 31, 2023; Columbus, Ohio, USA; Senate President Matt Huffman addresses those in attendance for the State of the State address at the Ohio Statehouse on Tuesday. Mandatory Credit: Barbara J. Perenic/Columbus Dispatch

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

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Ohio, thanks to GOP-gerrymandered districts, has elected itself a jim-dandy General Assembly.

The House of Representatives, 66-32 Republican (with one GOP vacancy) may decide to strangle Ohio democracy by making it harder to amend the Ohio Constitution. 

Thomas Suddes from the Archives: Redistricting Republicans might gas up chainsaws, slice and dice the state

Real goal: To stymie a bid by voter-petitioners to entrench in the constitution a right for pregnant women to choose abortion. (Ohio’s current “heartbeat law,” in its aim and likely effects, would practically ban abortion in Ohio, if upheld.)

The Ohio Bill of Rights says, “All political power is inherent in the people.” And legislators take an oath to support that. But it appears some GOP legislators, notably in the GOP-ruled House, think that constitutional pledge should be that political power in Ohio should be inherent only in a minority of the state’s voters.

Backdrop: Since 1912, the Ohio Constitution has guaranteed voters the right to propose constitutional amendments. Petitioners must gather a specified number of voter signatures in 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties to qualify a proposed amendment for the statewide ballot.

More:Plan to change Ohio constitutional rules may get August vote ahead of fall abortion issue

Thomas Suddes
Thomas Suddes

For 110 years, that was A-OK. Then abortion foes realized that a majority of voters (50% plus one) very likely would approve a voter-signature-initiated “Right to Reproductive Freedom with Protections for Health and Safety” amendment. It would, in effect, place in the Ohio Constitution the option of legal abortion in Ohio.

That proposed amendment sparked House Joint Resolution 1, a constitutional amendment the GOP-run legislature may put on the statewide ballot. The resolution would require future state constitutional amendments to win at least 60% of the statewide vote to pass.

That is, if House Joint Resolution 1 took effect, even if 59.99% of those voting on the reproductive abortion-rights amendment voted “yes,” that amendment would fail to pass if Ohio voters OK’d the 60% amendment before the abortion amendment reached November’s ballot.

More:Abortion opponents launch $5M in ads over parental consent to fight proposed Ohio amendment

The resolution also would require amendment-petition signatures from voters in all 88 counties, instead of the current 44, and abolish a 10-day period for gathering additional signatures if the initial batch submitted were less than the required statewide total, 413,487.

Consider this additional twist: The legislature’s Republicans, in a bill almost all backed late in 2022, virtually abolished August elections.

But the Dispatch reported last week that GOP leaders are nevertheless considering calling an August special election just to put the 60% amendment on the ballot.

Secretary of State Frank LaRose's office will defer to the Ohio Elections Commission to look into potentially illegal campaign expenditures in the Worthington school board campaign.
Secretary of State Frank LaRose's office will defer to the Ohio Elections Commission to look into potentially illegal campaign expenditures in the Worthington school board campaign.

If voters ratified it in August, that might effectively stymie the abortion rights amendment if the latter amendment passed in November by less than 60% of those voting in that election. Possibly reinstituting August elections three months after abolishing them speaks volumes about General Assembly Republicans’ potential political panic over the abortion rights amendment.

Plainly put, somebody, somewhere, has likely shown the GOP private polling that suggests the abortion amendment has political traction in Ohio: Thus, House Joint Resolution 1, and, complete coincidence, the incredibly restrictive rules on HJR 1 witness testimony by House Constitutional Resolutions Committee Chair Scott Wiggam, a Republican representative from Wooster.

That calls to mind another promise the Ohio Bill of Rights makes — “The people have the right to assemble together, in a peaceable manner, to consult for their common good; to instruct their representatives; and to petition the General Assembly for the redress of grievances.”

Those words should be stenciled on the wall of every Ohio House committee room.

Reason: The gerrymandering of the legislature has made it more out of touch than it already was. The winner of a given Republican primary in a Republican-gerrymandered district — or winner of a Democratic primary in a Democratic-packed district — is more likely than otherwise attuned to the political pleas of her or his committed party members back home.

In packed districts, there’s no question of which party will likely win — but which party member will be nominated. And given that the most committed, never-miss-an-election voters also tend to be ideologically committed, that leads to the all-or-nothing representation that mars the Statehouse today, stoking the parliamentary acrobatics over constitutional amendments.

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

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: How is House Joint Resolution 1 connected to abortion rights issues?