Vote no in August to preserve our democracy

Bankrolled by billionaires, upstate Republican leaders are trying to turn Ohio into a one-party state. Like Russia. Or China. Or the Nazi Germany that our fathers and grandfathers fought against in World War II.

I hope you’ll pardon my tone, but this is an emergency. Republicans are a distinct minority in Ohio, with more independents and Democrats by quite a lot. But minority-party Republicans have gerrymandered the districts—with outrageous boundary lines they drew — so that we’ve already lost our fair elections to the General Assembly. Now they’re trying to take away the ability of citizens to make laws directly — as we’ve been able to do for over a 100 years. They now want to require a super-majority vote of 60% plus when citizens propose something. Ohio veterans who’ve fought for our country, thinking they were fighting for democracy and our American way of life, are alarmed and outraged.

Am I exaggerating? No. Previous Ohio governors of both political parties oppose this change. Yes, former Republican Governor Taft, and former Republican Governor Kasich have come out strongly against this back-room proposal to take away majority rule on citizen initiatives. DeWine and his legislative cronies are trying to require a super-majority for you and me to exercise our right to change Ohio’s laws. Veterans groups across the state are organizing to help stop this real steal.

And, just as bad or worse, they would require citizen signatures from 5% of the voters in all of Ohio’s 88 counties—double the current law requiring only 44 counties! It might be easy for a billionaire to hire minions to get into every corner of the state for signatures. But it’s a lot harder for citizen groups—like the League of Women Voters—to get volunteers into all 88 counties.

Former Democratic governors Celeste and Strickland have also joined in the effort to preserve Ohio democracy. So DeWine is opposed by his predecessors from both parties in this effort to turn Ohio into a one-party state. And, even though DeWine and other Republicans have criticized special elections—which do cost taxpayers extra money—they’ve now set a special election for August 8th--a time they figure we’ll be on vacation I suppose—to get voters to approve this new 60% rule.

Why in the world would seemingly rational Mike DeWine want to take away our rights? The immediate issue for them is women’s choice. They want to tell Ohio’s women—no matter what the reasons—she can’t choose whether or not to have a child—even in cases of rape or possible death of the mother. The women of Ohio and their supporters are preparing a constitutional issue that would secure the rights of women and men to control their own reproduction. In the past, that would just take a majority vote, but DeWine and his legislative friends want to make citizen lawmaking impossibly hard. No matter how you feel about abortion — an uncomfortable subject for many —this change would limit Ohio’s voters on all matters, not just abortion.

So what can we do? Well, while we still have majority rule at the ballot — if not in the legislature--we can vote No in August at this special election and keep our rights as they are. You can also talk to your friends, neighbors, and relatives about it. They may not be aware of the situation and the danger.

Make sure you exercise your right to vote in the Aug. 8 election. Keep Ohio a majority-rule state. We may not get another chance. If we give up these rights now, what will be next? Who knows. But the ghosts of our World War II veterans are watching to see if we measure up.

And make sure you register by July 10 to vote on Aug. 8 this year. This is our last chance to protect our hard-won system of One Person One Vote. Let’s keep our democracy!

Jack Burgess is a retired history teacher, former Chief of Arbitration Services for the State of Ohio, and a U.S. Army Veteran.

This article originally appeared on Chillicothe Gazette: Vote no in August to preserve our democracy