Change Ohio Constitution; not in August

A proposed Ohio constitutional amendment to require a supermajority of 60 percent voter support to change the state’s defining governing document makes eminently good sense. ¶ But a planned special Aug. 8 election to send that proposal to the electorate for approval or rejection, however, makes absolutely no sense.

Such a rush to judgment on the Ohio Constitution Protection Amendment would throw down the drain an estimated $20 million in taxpayer money and would expose lawmakers who steamrolled it through the Legislature as hypocrites.

After all, it was only five months ago that the same Republican supermajority in the Ohio General Assembly prudently passed legislation to end August special elections. We and many others hailed that move because of the negative cost-benefit ratio of special elections.

They cost millions of dollars statewide only to produce a super minority of voters at the polls.

Those flimsy outcomes fly in the face of a fiscally responsible and robust participatory democracy.

In addition, if, as some argue, the speed to get the amendment to the ballot is an attempt to torpedo a specialinterest reproductive freedom constitutional amendment expected on the November ballot, would not those legislators pushing the August election also be guilty of pandering to the special interests rising up in opposition to a constitutional amendment on abortion?

Fortunately, legal challenges to the misguided resurrection of summer elections already have begun in the courts. Here’s hoping they succeed at the very least in delaying the vote on the 60-percent standard until the regularly scheduled Nov. 8 general election, when little or no additional expenses will be thrust upon state taxpayers.

But despite the hideously poor and politicized timing of the proposed constitutional amendment, the bedrock content of the Ohio Constitution Protection Act has clear merit.

As Ohio’s chief election officer, Secretary of State Frank LaRose, points out in his support for a 60 percent majority, narrow special interests should not be permitted to invade Ohio’s broadly constructed governing document. He points to the 2009 constitutional amendment largely financed by outside gambling interests that passed with a razor-thin 53 percent majority after having failed statewide twice before.

According to LaRose, the Ohio Constitution has been amended successfully almost 200 times since its adoption in 1802.

Many of those changes have originated from narrow special and corporate interests.

Contrast that with only 27 amendments added over nearly 250 years to the U.S. Constitution, the model for our state’s document. It, however, requires supermajorities of 66 percent approval in Congress and 75 percent approval among the 50 states to alter. The result has been a more stable governing charter with maximum consensus and strong durability.

Simply put, some decisions are so consequential as to require more than a meager 50 percent plus 1 majority. Juries determining the fate of suspects often require 100 percent unanimity. A two-thirds vote majority is required to override a presidential veto. A three-fifths majority is needed to pass a substantial measure through the United Nations Security Council. A 60 percent voter majority to chisel permanent changes into Ohio’s overarching governing document hardly seems out of place.

Even if the change is enacted, individuals and groups seeking to change language in the Ohio Revised Code still can do so easily enough through the citizen initiative outlined in the state constitution.

The ORC, however, is a much more fluid document, having been revised thousands of times. Narrow and targeted changes in state law are best suited for the narrow and targeted nature of the ORC. What’s more, those ballot initiatives require only a simple majority of voter support for passage — and there’s no move afoot to raise that standard.

Clearly the simple majority rule for state constitutional amendments has outlived its usefulness. It was enacted in 1913 by Ohio voters through a statewide ballot initiative.

Now, 110 years later, our state’s overly lenient amendment process has attracted more than 11,000 often costly and foolhardy attempts at change.

Constitutional amendments, on the state or federal level, should be exceedingly rare — not marketed at a dime a dozen.