Abortion rights groups in Ohio are working to put a proposed constitutional amendment on this November’s statewide ballot, and two previously competing organizations announced this week that they were merging in order to better advance this goal. This proposal would only need a majority to pass if it goes before voters, but as we’ll discuss, Republicans are working to advance their own measure to make it far tougher to ever amend the state constitution again.
The two pro-choice groups, Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom and Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights, initially disagreed up until now whether they should put this proposal before voters in 2023 or 2024. The earlier date won out, though, and they now say they’ll be submitting the summary of their proposed measure to Republican Attorney General Dave Yost next week. While the campaign has not yet released the text, it says this referendum will be similar to the measure that Michigan voters passed last year that enshrined the right to reproductive freedom, including abortion, in their state constitution.
Campaign Action
Ohio Republican legislators passed a law in 2019 that effectively bans abortion after just six weeks, but a state judge blocked it last fall. For now, abortion is legal for 22 weeks, but Yost is trying to bring the matter before the GOP-led state Supreme Court. Abortion rights supporters want to pass this amendment before that can happen, but as Axios explains, they first must clear several hurdles before they can even present it to voters.
First, Yost must determine the proposed ballot summary is a "fair and truthful representation" of the amendment. If it gets the green light, then pro-choice groups would have until July 5 to collect just over 413,000 valid signatures—a number that represents 10% of the number of votes cast for last year's governor race.
State law also requires that these petitions come from at least half of Ohio's 88 counties, and that “[f]rom each of these 44 counties, there must be signatures equal to at least 5 percent” of the votes cast in the last gubernatorial election. If it qualifies for this year's ballot, the measure would need to prevail over what will likely be an expensive campaign from anti-abortion forces.
Republican legislators, meanwhile, are hoping to put their own referendum on this November’s ballot to require that future amendments win the support of 60% of voters. That measure, ironically enough, also needs to win just a majority of the vote in order to pass, and it would impact any amendments from 2024 on. This could include a potential anti-gerrymandering amendment that supporters want to be on next year’s ballot.
It takes three-fifths of each chamber to put a constitutional amendment before Ohio voters, and the GOP has the numbers to do this in both the state Senate and House. Republicans originally hoped to place this on this May’s primary vote, where turnout tends to be low, but didn’t act in time to meet this month’s deadline. However, state House Speaker Jason Stephens said Wednesday that he would make advancing this amendment a priority, an announcement that pleased one very prominent intraparty enemy.
State Rep. Derek Merrin has been engaged in an ugly feud with Stephens since the latter forged a coalition of Democrats and a minority of Republicans to win the speakership. However, while the two can’t even agree which of them should control the credit card for the caucus' campaign arm, they’re on the same page on the 60% amendment. Merrin said, “We can pass whatever bill we want in the House, in the Senate. But if we're going to allow our constitution to be hijacked, it completely ruins all the work that the people's representatives have done.”
Republicans have until Aug. 9 to meet this new deadline, but abortion rights supporters say they’d also work to beat this measure if it comes to it. A spokesperson for Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom declared, “We are against that and for our constitutional amendment … And if we have to fight both at the same time we will.”