Issue 1 could boost voter turnout in November
TThomas Suddes
he Ohio Legislative Black Caucus endorsed State Issue 1 last week. Issue 1, placed on Ohio’s statewide ballot via voter signatures, would make “obtaining, possessing or using” illegal drugs — but not trafficking in them — a misdemeanor rather than a felony.
And Issue 1 would sharply reduce the number of people sent to prison for “obtaining, possessing or using” illegal drugs. Aim: To emphasize treatment rather than imprisonment for drug addiction.
“When we look at the history of incarceration, specifically people of color, for poor people, we have not been working collectively, innovatively to really try to help people,” Rep. Stephanie Howse, a Cleveland Democrat, and the caucus president, told The Dispatch.
Also supporting Issue 1 are Democratic gubernatorial nominee Richard Cordray and Democrats’ nominee for state treasurer, Rob Richardson. The Republican nominee for governor, Attorney General Mike DeWine, opposes Issue 1. DeWine has said Issue 1 could, as one example, let people possessing the deadly drug fentanyl be charged with a misdemeanor and also avoid jail. Also opposed to Issue 1 is Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, a Greater Cleveland Republican who was once Summit County’s prosecuting attorney, and a galaxy of law-enforcement organizations.
Starting on Wednesday, Ohioans may vote early, and their ballots will include Issue 1’s officially approved ballot language. Besides Issue 1’s merits and demerits, it’s an interesting question whether it will boost overall voter turnout in this year’s election for governor.
Given a perennial maxim of 20-year Ohio House Speaker Vern Riffe — “When Democrats turn out, we win” — Democrats’ turnout could be a key in the contest between Cordray and DeWine to succeed lame-duck Republican Gov. John Kasich. (The parallel contest between U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Cleveland Democrat, and his challenger, U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci, a Wadsworth Republican, seems destined to be a Brown re-election romp, given Renacci’s hapless campaign.)
Late last month, the Issue 1 campaign announced, for example, that Service Employees International Union District 1199 — the health-care and socialservices union that’s long been known for its socialjustice activism — had launched a “six-figure radio ad campaign” supporting Issue 1. The ads feature singer, songwriter and actor John Legend, a native of Springfield.
Drug offenses not only flood courthouses but — face facts — are killing Ohioans. Meanwhile, racial inequities are clearly a feature of the criminal-justice system. Issue 1 may or may not address those inequities — voters will decide what they think about that — but Issue 1’s discussion and ads and candidates’ positions may boost turnout for November’s election, helping Democrats.
Nebraska is the only state with a one-chamber (“unicameral”) legislature. Ohio, as argued here before, should consider shrinking its legislature. True, for Statehouse insiders, keeping a two-chamber (“bicameral”) legislature has pluses. A lobbyist gets paid to lobby both Ohio’s House and state Senate. Presumably, his or her fee would be half as much if the General Assembly were one chamber. And a two-chamber legislature makes it easier to kill a good bill via procedural falderal.
Beginning in the early 1900s, the Ohio Constitution’s Hanna Amendment guaranteed each of Ohio’s 88 counties at least one Ohio House seat, no matter how small a county’s population was. That gave rural Ohio (The “Cornstalk Brigade”) outsized influence in the legislature.
But in 1964, in Reynolds vs. Sims, the U.S. Supreme Court required the 50 states to draw districts for both their Senates and Houses based on population, not on geography. In Chief Justice Earl Warren’s words, “Legislators represent people, not trees or acres. Legislators are elected by voters, not farms or cities or economic interests.” (Actually, economic interests do elect General Assembly members, but you’re not supposed to say that out loud.)
Reynolds vs. Sims should have prompted Ohio and other states to imitate Nebraska. But Ohio didn’t. True, in the mid-1930s, there’d been discussion about shrinking the General Assembly to a single, 100member chamber. But that never made Ohio’s ballot. Much has changed in the 80 or so years since then — except for an Ohio General Assembly designed for, and during, horse-and-buggy days.