House Joint Resolution 6 most brazen power grab in decades
Ohio House Republicans have stalled, if only for now, a plan (House Joint Resolution 6) to make it harder for Ohioans to amend the state constitution.
The plan to hobble voters, backed by GOP Secretary of State Frank Larose, could still reach May 2’s ballot if the new General Assembly, which will meet Jan. 3, approves it fast enough.
Were voters to OK the plan — with a “yes” vote of at least 50% plus one (the current requirement for constitutional amendments) — then future amendments would require a “yes” vote of at least 60%. The sponsor of HJR 6 is Republican Rep. Brian Stewart, of Pickaway County’s Ashville.
Plainly put, HJR 6 could make it exceedingly difficult for pro-abortionchoice advocates, or gerrymandering foes, to win statewide ballot issues addressing either issue.
As it is, Republicans run the Ohio General Assembly. Republicans run the Ohio Supreme Court. Republicans run Ohio’s executive branch, from the governorship on down. The next agenda item, evidently, is to gag Ohio’s voters.
The proposed 60% requirement is arguably the most brazen attempted Statehouse power grab since an earlier Gop-run legislature, and Republican then-gov. James A. Rhodes (on another May 2 — in 1967) proposed an Ohio Bond Commission.
The Bond Commission — had voters not vetoed it with a 67% “no” vote — could have run up Ohio’s general obligation bond debt without voters’ OK, something forbidden then, still forbidden now — one reason Ohio’s credit rating is as strong as it is.
Furthermore: When the 2023-24 Ohio General Assembly begins its session next month, legislators’ main goal should be to write a balanced state budget for the two years that’ll begin July 1.
In that connection, there is an added factor that will help stoke Ohio’s 2023-24 budget debate: Continued funding for the Fair School Funding plan, which legislators began to fund in the current budget.
The expectation (or at least the implication) has been that the state Senate and Ohio House will continue the Fair School Funding plan’s outlays in the 2023-24 budget. But there’s a complicating factor. A fair number of the General Assembly’s Republicans favor so-called school choice “backpack” plans — in effect, no matter a family’s income or school district, a universal school voucher program to help families pay for private K-12 school tuition.
That idea enjoys a spectrum of support among conservatives. Just as predictably the Ohio Education Association is opposed because of the threat voucher plans present to traditional public school funding. There’s no telling if the idea will come to a Statehouse vote in 2023 or 2024, but people on either side of the issue should remember this:
Since Ohio began schoolvoucher programs 27 years ago, in 1995 (for pupils in Cleveland’s schools), the legislature has constantly expanded school-choice in Ohio, sometimes slowly, yes — but steadily.