After Ohio voters repealed a law pushed by Republicans that would have limited unions' collective bargaining rights in 2011, then-GOP Gov. John Kasich was contrite.
Historically, attempts to undercut the citizen ballot initiative process have come from both parties, said Daniel A. Smith, a political science professor at the University of Florida.
At least six states, including Ohio, have sought to increase the number of counties where signatures must be gathered. Sarah Walker, policy and legal advocacy director for the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, said Republicans in Ohio and elsewhere are restricting the ballot initiative process in an era of renewed populism that’s not going their way. She said conservatives had no interest in amending the ballot initiative process when they were winning campaigns in the 1990s and early 2000s.
That prompted an influential mix of Republican politicians, anti-abortion and gun rights organizations and business interests in the state to push forward with Tuesday’s failed amendment, which would have raised the threshold for passing future constitutional changes from a simple majority to a 60% supermajority.
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose is among Republicans in the state who cast Issue 1 as a fight against out-of-state special interests, although both sides of the campaign were heavily funded by such groups.“Unfortunately,” he said, “we were dramatically outspent by dark money billionaires from California to New York, and the giant ‘for sale’ sign still hangs on Ohio’s constitution,” said LaRose, who is running for U.S. Senate in 2024.
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