By lifting the threshold for Constitutional amendments to pass in Ohio to 60%, Issue 1 empowers a 41% minority to veto a 59% majority on issue after issue.
For good reason, that prospect of permanent minority rule—a veto of a strong majority by just 41% of Ohioans—has people up in arms and working hard to defeat Issue 1.
But if 41% sounds bad, how about 1%?
Or .25%?
Or how about .13%
Sounds bananas, right?
But that’s exactly what a less high-profile feature of Ohio Issue 1 would do—empower tiny slivers of Ohio’s population to veto the rest of the state from even HAVING an election at all.
How?
Currently, to get a referendum on the ballot, in addition to gathering a total number of signatures across the entire state, those petitions must include signatures from at least 44 counties that total 5% of the number of votes cast in the prior election for Governor.
This ensures that a broad base of Ohio has signed on, which makes sense. And as we’ve seen with the recent petition effort to protect abortion access, it’s achievable if you have a well-organized effort.
Issue 1 raises this county signature requirement to ALL 88 counties.
That doesn’t only mean that a petition drive has to work harder to get on the ballot.
It means that by requiring every one of Ohio’s 88 counties to hit that threshold, Issue 1 would give every single county its own veto over whether there is even an election at all.
Any single county falls short of the number and, presto…no election!
And when you do the math (as I do in the video above) that means even individual counties that comprise less than 30,000, 25,000 or even 15,000 people (which is just .13% of Ohio’s population of 11.7 million people)—and Ohio has numerous counties of this size—can play spoiler in having a statewide referendum that otherwise has wide and deep support. Any one of them can play that veto role all by themselves.
How would that ever happen, you ask?
First, in a big and diverse state like Ohio, it’s common that some issues break hard across regional lines so that even issues that are widely popular statewide may not get strong support in certain regions or counties. So giving every county a veto role is problematic—and deeply undemocratic—in those instances. Such scenarios alone could stop long-term progress that most Ohioans want.
But even worse, giving any single Ohio county a veto also invites trouble in a big way.
The powerful bottleneck the new rule creates would become an enticing failsafe that any group or special interest that wants to stop an amendment from happening could take advantage of. As opposed to battling a referendum statewide, just set up shop in one or several small counties to stop a statewide and popular push for change in its tracks. Success in just one provides a far easier and cheaper path to victory than a later statewide battle.
And in case that sounds far-fetched, you only need to look a what happened last month in a Cincinnati federal courtroom to see how real this possibility is. A key part of the HB6 scandal that just led to long federal prison sentences was a plot (by special interests, operatives and politicians alike) to use paid operatives to interfere with the signature gathering process as it was taking place!
That was hard to pull off then, and still would be now, because you’d have to block so many signatures all across Ohio to keep an otherwise successful effort off the ballot. And stopping 45 counties from reaching that threshold would be a herculean task.
Still, they tried.
But if Issue 1 passes, then all it takes to kill an entire amendment is to stifle petition gathering in A SINGLE county—the smaller, the better.
And if First Energy and their henchmen were willing to invest millions to block signatures from being gathered everywhere, imagine what special interests and gerrymandered politicians will do knowing that the one-county veto route makes a far more concentrated investment in interference far more likely to succeed.
If you’ve watched Ohio’s political machinations for very long at all, you know the answer already.
So not only does the 88-county rule open the door to a tiny minority stopping an entire state from having a desired election, but it offers special interests and their toadies an easy and cheap way to stop referenda from ever making it to the ballot at all.
To state it differently, the nation’s most corrupt statehouse is creating a mechanism that INVITES far more of the very type of bad behavior their recent speaker and special interests were just CAUGHT using to block citizen activists from stopping a deeply corrupt bill!
I was pleased that the former GOP Congressman and Senate candidate, and current Medina County GOP chair Jim Renacci (someone I rarely agree with) posted about this very aspect of Issue 1—raising the concern that by giving all counties the potential to block an election from happening, Issue 1 makes the entire path to amendments “virtually impossible”:
He also pointed out that such an all-county rule does not exist in any other state in the country:
Of course it doesn’t!
It’s an absolutely egregious feature, something only a really corrupt and cynical place would dream up and pass.
Bottom line: Issue 1 is a monstrosity.
Vote No, early, then ensure everyone you know also votes No by August 8.
And if you’re from outside Ohio, we so appreciate anything you can do to help us defeat this Issue. As I’ve said before and written in my books, this is all part of a national anti-democracy playbook—so if horrible ideas like this become the law in Ohio, they will quickly emerge elsewhere as well. So your help here has national implications.
I’ve outlined all the ways you can help defeat Issue 1 in a past newsletter. Read that HERE. Know that every voter contact matters in what will be a low-turnout election.
Do not allow them to sneak this poison pill to democracy into Ohio’s Constitution.
A Democracy Poison Pill