Ohioans For A Fair Minimum Wage are presently circulating a petition to amend the Ohio Constitution to change the state minimum wage from $4.25/hr to $6.85/hr. Recently, the Republican-controlled legislature changed the minimum wage to $5.15 in a bill that removed $100 million from the worker's compensation program. Certainly, they'll use this against the amendement in a "voted for it before he voted against it"-type scenario (many Democrats voted against it) in the upcoming election.
I certainly agree with the folks trying to get the minimum wage raised to a relatively decent number. I would think many people across Ohio would agree that our minimum wage needs to be increased, but I'm worried that this amendment won't pass.
As many of you can recall, the Reform Ohio coalition put several needed amendments on the ballot to reform what one-party rule has done in our state. They all failed, in my opinion, because each amendment was incredibly complex. I recall voting on my lovely Diebold voting machine and attempting to read each amendment. A few required two pages. At that point I could envision people attempting to understand the amdendment, getting confused and ultimately voting against it. Unfortunately, the language for this amendment is just as long and convoluted as those were. It runs a full two pages.
I think more Ohioans would be for a simple initiative campaign which would simply change 3 numbers in the revised code, rather than a 2 page amdendment to our constitution.
Hopefully, the voters will prove me wrong.
The full text can be found (in PDF format) here.