Amending Ohio’s constitution might get more difficult
Following COLUMBUS — another statewide ballot issue fight sparked by a group from outside Ohio, Republican legislative leaders may soon take action to make it tougher to get constitutional amendments on the ballot, or to pass them.
Citing the need to “protect the Constitution,” House Speaker Ryan Smith, R-Bidwell, said last week that “for too long (the constitution) has been under attack for all the wrong reasons. We need to address that.”
Smith said it has grown too easy to place an issue on the ballot and change the state Constitution. And Senate President Larry Obhof, R-Medina, agreed. The statements came days after voters overwhelmingly rejected state Issue 1, a proposed constitutional amendment to end jail time for drug possession charges.
“Our founding document is susceptible to too much outside money,” Smith said. “If this was initiatives from Ohio citizens ... this would be a different discussion.”
Obhof said the past 20 years has seen the creation of a big-money cottage industry that does little more than find issues to amend into state constitutions.
The document’s framers “intended to create the opportunity for a true grassroots movement, a groundswell of support for an issue or a groundswell of frustration with the legislature on an issue,” he said.
A second proposed amendment this year, to cap kidney dialysis costs, did not make the ballot only after the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that those collecting signatures did not fill out the necessary forms.
Critics say the constitution has been cluttered over the years with issues such as livestock-care standards and casino locations. But those who have pushed some recent constitutional amendments can point to success stories.
Though they never made the ballot, recent organized efforts to get payday lending restrictions and congressional redistricting reforms into the Constitution helped push lawmakers to take action to address both issues. A ballot effort to legalize marijuana in Ohio failed, but it prompted lawmakers to legalize the drug for medical purposes. A push for an amendment in 2005 prompted lawmakers to approve early voting.
“Citizens need to have the ability to make policy happen when they’re not seeing it out of the state legislature,” said Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio.
While she did not outright oppose changes to the process for amending the Constitution, Miller said lawmakers need to make it easier for citizens to do initiated statutes — ballot proposals that, if approved, take effect as any other law signed by the governor.
However, an initiated statute requires multiple efforts to gather signatures. “Part of the reason why groups often go towards the constitutional amendment is the process is really complicated just to bring a law ... to the people on the ballot,” Miller said.
Asked about options, Smith said he likes the amendment threshold in Florida, which requires 60 percent approval from voters. Obhof, agreeing that a simple majority ballot vote is not a high enough, also suggested requiring multiple votes. Nevada, for example, requires majority votes in two consecutive elections.
“We need to ask ourselves as a state, do we want to constantly have to do this, or should we take some efforts to protect our Constitution and do policy the right way,” Obhof said.
Republican leaders also may look at increasing the signature requirement to get a non-constitutional issue on the ballot. Currently, a group must collect valid signatures equaling 10 percent of the vote total from the most recent governor’s race — about 306,000 this year, but expected to rise to over 430,000 starting next year.