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Abortion rights groups aim to make Ohio next to enshrine reproductive rights in state constitution [1]

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Date: 2023-02-16  

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 requires that these petitions come from at least half of Ohio’s 88 counties.) 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.”

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/16/2153351/-Abortion-rights-groups-aim-to-make-Ohio-next-to-enshrine-reproductive-rights-in-state-constitution

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