But Ohio Republicans, who control both chambers of the state legislature and have sought to restrict access to abortion, are trying to make the process more difficult. They scheduled a special election for Tuesday with just one issue on the ballot: Should constitutional amendments require the support of 60 percent of voters rather than a simple majority?
To pass, that measure needs just a simple majority. If it’s approved, future ballot initiatives — including the abortion measure — will need to achieve the new, higher threshold.
Supporters of abortion rights and other advocates for keeping the citizen initiative process intact have accused Republican lawmakers of trying to thwart the will of the majority and weaken voters’ voices. Republicans and opponents of abortion have defended their call for the special election, arguing that there should be a high bar for amending the state constitution, just as there is for modifying the U.S. Constitution. They argue that voters still would have a say in state policy under their plan and contend that they want to prevent out-of-state groups from wielding outsize influence in Ohio.
In essence, Ohio voters are grappling with a confluence of two hot-button ideas: the fate of abortion rights and, when it comes to citizens’ ability to change the state constitution, the future of an important tool of democracy.
“It’s not a question of a voice at all; people still certainly have their voice,” said Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R), who supports raising the threshold to 60 percent. “I think it’s a question of, how do you view the constitution? … People are still going to have the opportunity to vote, and people are going to vote on this.”
Opponents of a 60 percent threshold contend that the Republicans’ line of argument is disingenuous. They say raising the bar for changing the constitution will make it harder to end partisan gerrymandering and ensure voters have fair representation. Plus, they contend, it would make it all but impossible to change the constitution in ways that conservatives would support.
Proponents of the new threshold are “willing to change the rules because they don’t trust voters,” said Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio, a nonprofit group focused on strengthening democratic institutions.
The special election Tuesday in Ohio has turned into a proxy fight over abortion, which has proved to be a potent political issue since the U.S. Supreme Court last year reversed the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that guaranteed a constitutional right to an abortion. In two conservative-leaning states, voters rejected referendum measures that would have changed their constitutions to explicitly say they did not grant a right to an abortion, while voters in three states backed measures enshrining abortion rights in their constitutions.
Access to abortion motivated many voters in the 2022 midterm elections, and the issue is expected to be a force in next year’s races for president and the U.S. House and Senate — and what happens in Ohio this year will be closely watched across the country.
The Tuesday vote in Ohio has drawn unusually intense interest from voters and donors. As of Friday, more than 578,000 people had voted early — a turnout that is more than double what was seen in the May 2022 primary for Senate but low in comparison with a fall election for governor or president. Canvassers for and against the measure have been knocking on doors for weeks, and the cost of their efforts is climbing. Groups that support securing abortion rights in the November election and those that oppose Tuesday’s ballot measure have raised roughly $25 million, according to campaign finance filings, while those on the other side have raised about $20 million. Both sides have accepted money from outside the state.
Those opposed to changing the rules for amending the constitution sense that Ohio voters are on their side. A July poll by USA Today and Suffolk University found that 57 percent of voters opposed raising the vote threshold. Support for the measure was soft even among Republicans, with only 38 percent of GOP voters backing changing the rules.
In recent years, several states have rejected measures that would have raised the threshold for amending their state constitutions in response to efforts to expand Medicaid, raise the minimum wage and limit gerrymandering. This includes in South Dakota and in Arkansas last year, while attempts to schedule a similar vote in Missouri failed this spring.
The July poll from Suffolk University showed that 58 percent of likely voters supported the abortion amendment, suggesting that the referendum measure would easily pass under existing rules but could come up just short under the 60 percent standard.
On a Saturday morning in July, union members gathered at P.J. McIntyre’s, an Irish pub in Cleveland with a mural of a pint of Guinness stout on one wall and a silhouette of Ireland on another. Some wrote personalized postcards urging people to vote this summer as others downloaded a phone app they would use to guide their door-knocking efforts.
From the stage, speakers emphasized the importance of defeating Tuesday’s ballot measure, Issue 1.
“The most corrupt state legislative majority in Ohio’s history is trying to make a power grab to take away the power of the people,” Shari Obrenski, the president of the Cleveland Teachers Union, told the crowd. “We are what’s standing in the way of that corrupt majority taking away our power to do what’s right for the people of our state.”
Hinting at a bribery scandal that sent a former Ohio House speaker to prison, state Rep. Michael Skindell (D) told the audience that voters need to “send a message to these corrupt Republicans for trying to jam this down our throats.”
Afterward, Cleveland teacher Kurt Richards went door to door to talk to voters. He steered clear of talk about abortion and instead focused on the importance of keeping majority rule.
“Issue One wants to move that threshold to 60 percent needed, and so what that does is that takes the minority and gives them the majority, which doesn’t make any sense to, really, anybody,” Richards told one voter in a suburb on Cleveland’s west side.
At another house, Richards talked to Virginia Canright. She said she planned to vote against the measure even though she understands the allure of wanting constitutional amendments to pass by resounding margins.
“The flip side is that 40 percent could defeat it,” she said of a constitutional amendment. “That’s kind of lopsided.”
Several days later, about two dozen people gathered north of Columbus at the Marion County Republican Party’s headquarters. Michael Gonidakis, president of Ohio Right to Life, urged them to vote to change the rules.
“Some people said, ‘Gonidakis, isn’t this all about the abortion issue?’ To me and my wife, Amy Gonidakis, it absolutely is. It’s 100 percent about the abortion issue,” he said. “But for you, it might be about something else.”
Throughout the event, he ticked off a list of other issues: Minimum wage. Gun rights. Marijuana legalization.
Under the long-standing rules allowing simple majorities, “our constitution is for sale,” Gonidakis said. He contended that powerful interest groups outside the state wanted to obstruct the will of the people and help finance expensive ballot measure campaigns in Ohio.
Later that day, at a fundraiser for a coalition of antiabortion groups at a farm southwest of Columbus, top Republicans delivered a similar message.
Frank LaRose, Ohio’s secretary of state, who has since launched a bid for the U.S. Senate, was up first.
“Constitutions do not exist for day-to-day legislating — things like casinos or raising the minimum wage or maybe trying to do something that would make it harder for farmers to run their operations … or something like this radical abortion amendment that is being considered this November,” he said.
LaRose pulled out a pocket-size U.S. Constitution and noted that the document has been amended 27 times. By contrast, Ohio has amended its constitution 172 times. He declared that “the left” wants to change it every year.
That’s why Valerie Cardwell, a resident of Pickaway County who attended the event, plans to vote for the measure, she said.
“I’d like to see Ohio a lot closer to the U.S. Constitution,” said Cardwell, who owns small grocery stores with her husband. “It’s very difficult to amend the U.S. Constitution. I think Ohio should be a little closer to that.”
Ohio gave citizens the ability to initiate constitutional amendments in 1912. Since then, citizens have proposed 71 amendments, but voters have approved just 19 of those, according to data from Cleveland State University. In far more cases, amendments have been proposed by lawmakers and approved by voters.
Tuesday’s vote looms amid the nation’s broader fight over abortion. In 2019, Ohio lawmakers passed a law banning abortion when fetal cardiac activity is detected, often at six weeks of pregnancy, but the ban couldn’t go into effect when Roe was the law of the land. But on June, 24, 2022, the day Roe was overturned, the state’s abortion restrictions went into effect.
“It was devastating to people,” said Sri Thakkilapati, executive director of Preterm, an abortion clinic in Cleveland. The medical team scrambled to provide abortions to every patient on the schedule before the restrictions kicked in later that day.
Soon afterward, Ohio drew international attention when a 10-year-old rape victim from there traveled to Indiana because she could not get an abortion in her home state. Nearly three months later, a Hamilton County judge blocked the abortion ban, and a lawsuit is wending its way through the court system. Since then, women seeking abortions but residing in states with strict bans — such as Georgia, West Virginia and Kentucky — are traveling to Ohio. Some come from as far away as Texas.
Ahead of the special election, canvassers with Protect Women Ohio Action — which is supported by Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a leading antiabortion group — are knocking on doors across the state, particularly targeting independent voters as well as abortion opponents who are not regular voters. Before discussing the substance of the ballot initiatives, some advocates ask voters if they’re aware there’s an election Tuesday and also an abortion rights ballot measure looming in November.
Conservatives may have difficulty among some voters on whom they normally rely. Lee Weingart, a Republican who lost a race for Cuyahoga county executive last year, said he is likely to vote against the abortion rights measure but opposes the effort to raise the threshold for amending the state constitution.
“My belief is that rather than change the rules midstream or move the goal posts, we should make principled arguments against initiatives that we don’t like,” Weingart said. “So if you don’t like the abortion initiative, you should make an argument against it rather than change the rules of the game to prevent it from going into effect.”
The proposal in Tuesday’s special election also would make it harder to get any constitutional amendments on the ballot in the first place.
Now, citizens who want to amend the constitution must get signatures equal to 10 percent of the number of people who voted in the most recent race for governor. Signatures must be collected in at least 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties, with the total from each county equaling at least 5 percent of the votes cast in the governor’s race.
If the secretary of state determines that the backers of the ballot measure have not turned in enough valid signatures, they are given 10 days to gather more.
Issue 1 would change those rules by requiring petitioners to hit the 5 percent mark in every Ohio county and ending the ability to gather additional signatures. Opponents say the new rules would make gathering signatures so cumbersome that almost none would make it to the ballot.
Making it harder to amend the state constitution could help Republicans keep their majorities in the legislature. In 2015, voters approved a constitutional amendment aimed at curbing gerrymandering, but a Republican-dominated commission still drew election maps that favored the GOP. The state Supreme Court repeatedly ruled against the GOP maps, but the state used them last year because it ran out of time to draw ones the court would approve.
Among the justices ruling against the GOP maps was Maureen O’Connor, the Republican chief justice who has since retired from the court. O’Connor has called for a constitutional amendment that would bar elected officials from serving on the redistricting commission to help ensure that it acts in a nonpartisan manner. That measure could go before voters as soon as next year, but passing it would be tougher if voters raise the threshold.
More immediately, the secretary of state determined in July that supporters of abortion rights had turned in enough signatures to hold the November vote. Days later, two Republicans sued to stop that election. The state Supreme Court is expected to reach a decision soon on whether that vote can go forward.
And on Tuesday, Ohio voters will decide whether that election will be decided by a simple majority — or not.
