The Ohio Statehouse on Capitol Square in downtown Columbus.
File photo | The Lima News
COLUMBUS — Ohio House leaders officially have revived a controversial state constitutional amendment to make it harder to amend the state constitution — which could have major ramifications for an expected future abortion-rights ballot issue.
House Speaker Jason Stephens on Wednesday gave a procedural green light to the proposal, which would require 60% of voters to approve future state constitutional amendments, compared to the current simple majority, 50% plus-one vote standard.
The move from Stephens means the measure, which stalled during the lame-duck legislative session in December, now has an official name — House Joint Resolution 1 — and can be subject to committee hearings.
The current version of the proposal also raises the bar for the already cumbersome process of collecting hundreds of thousands of voter signatures before the measure can make the ballot. The proposal would require amendment backers to get signatures from all 88 Ohio counties, not just half of them, among other stricter requirements.
The newly christened HJ1 will head to the House Committee on Constitutional Resolutions, a committee with a potentially fractious mix of Stephens’ Republican allies, Democrats and Republican supporters of state Rep. Derek Merrin, who lost a contentious leadership fight to Stephens last month. The committee’s roster includes the resolution’s sponsor, state Rep. Brian Stewart, a top Merrin lieutenant.
The fate of the 60% proposal is interwoven with the still-simmering inter-GOP dispute between Stephens and Merrin. Stephens turned to Democrats to win the fight over Merrin, who had expected to be named speaker after winning a secret Republican caucus vote in November.
With Merrin in charge, Republicans had expected to fast-track the proposal to get it front of voters for the May election, pre-empting an expected abortion-rights ballot issue. But by helping Stephens win the gavel, Democrats stalled the measure.
However, Stephens now has signaled interest in potentially advancing the ballot issue for voters in the November election. Doing so would require the House and Senate, both dominated by Republicans, to approve HJR1 by August.
Speaking with reporters Wednesday, Merrin and Stewart reiterated their disappointment that the 60% proposal didn’t advance in time to get on the May ballot.
Merrin described the proposal as such: “The number-one issue right now is protecting our constitution from liberal interests who look to hijack it.”
“To say that it’s going to be referred to a committee is pretty basic stuff,” Stewart said. “We want to see action and movement.”
Supporters of setting a higher bar for constitutional amendments say it’s needed to prevent well-funded special interest groups from passing law changes that are difficult to undo. Gambling interests, for example, successfully funded a ballot campaign to legalize casino gambling in 2009, including writing parcels of land into the state constitution where the casinos would be located.
But opponents of the proposal call it undemocratic, and a removal of an existing check on the power of the state legislature, where Republicans hold a supermajority.
“HJR1 is a blatant power grab by special interests and corrupt politicians, which seeks to undermine our democracy and silence the voice of the people,” Desiree Tims, president of Innovation Ohio, a liberal advocacy group, said in a statement on Wednesday. “This amendment shreds our constitution as we know it and is a direct attack on the rights of Ohio voters.”
Setting a 60% bar for amendments would make it much less likely any future abortion-rights measure would pass, judging from last year’s election results in other states. But one of the two Ohio campaigns trying to organize one here is targeting the November election, which would allow them to present the issue to voters under the current rules that require a simple majority for an amendment to be approved.
Other potential future ballot issues include planned constitutional amendments to hike the state’s minimum wage and to overhaul the state’s redistricting process.
