Why Ohio’s Issue 1 is a National Battle…

Early voting began in Ohio today for our August special election, giving Ohioans their first chance to vote No on Issue 1.

While some from around the country are actively involved already, others who don’t live in Ohio may still be wondering: how does a special election in Ohio about Ohio’s Constitutional amendment process affect me?

As I explain in the video above, once you understand what the far right’s strategy is—to use gerrymandered statehouses to get most of their extremist (and unpopular) agenda done, free from any accountability due to those rigged districts—you see how central Issue 1 is to that strategy.

Because as we saw in Kansas and Michigan in recent years, if the people step and block their extremism directly via state constitutional amendments, then their statehouse-driven agenda is slowed or stopped in its tracks.

But if they can make it next to impossible for the people themselves to provide that needed check via direct democracy, then they eliminate that potential obstacle, and can keep accelerating all that they’re doing through the statehouses they’ve hijacked. Block the people—enhance their own power and insulate the gerrymandered statehouses even further.

Issue 1 is their response to their recent failures in those other states. And as I describe in both my books, whenever they come up with a tactic that works for their ignoble cause, they quickly export that tactic to every state they can.

So, if Issue 1 succeeds in Ohio:

1. it will further protect Ohio’s corrupted statehouse to continue its far-right work (beginning with protecting their extreme abortion ban) even though it largely does NOT reflect the views or the best interests of Ohioans;

2. that “success” here will quickly be replicated in other states, with the same goal, and using the same messaging and same outside money. Mark my words, they will also tell those states’ voters that “states like Ohio are doing it, so you should too.” How do I know? Because they do this all the time, and it’s already part of their misleading messaging here.

So if they succeed here, it will spread quickly. If they fail here—and by fail, our aim should be to absolutely crush it—my hope is that it sends a powerful signal to them (remember, they are always learning from their successes and failures) and their donors that this is a losing tactic. That the people here easily saw through it. And that every penny they spent on this absurd idea was wasted.

By beating it here, we can help stop this type of effort in its tracks, before it’s tried in other places.

So, if you’re from outside Ohio, please help us.

You can support the effort by contributing what you can here—the proceeds will be given to the No on Issue 1 campaign:

You can do phone banks or texts by linking here:

You can send postcards by clicking on this link:

Yes, this battle happens to be in Ohio, but like Kansas last August and Wisconsin in April of this year, this is a national battle with profound implications for democracy itself.

We appreciate anything you can do to help.