Vote NO on August 8.

Petitioners have been fanning out all over Ohio for more than a month, collecting signatures to put a reproductive rights protection issue on the November 2023 ballot. The movement, Protect Women’s Rights, spearheaded by a coalition of state organizations, is polling at about 59%. It’s widely popular, unlike the extreme abortion bans promoted by the illegally gerrymandered GOP supermajority in the legislature.

But just as they shredded the state constitution, violating it seven times to keep their stranglehold on power so that they don’t have to represent the views of the citizens in their districts, they began looking for ways to derail this effort to allow citizens to overrule their unpopular stand on reproductive rights. What they came up with this: a rushed August election to pass a measure requiring a 60% vote to pass a citizen-initiated constitutional amendment (50% would still be the amount required for an amendment initiated by the legislature).

They reinstated — this one time! — an August election, which they banned several months ago, citing the cost and low turnout (about 8% last year). They were right the first time. But in order to derail abortion rights, they had to jump the line.

We know this is what it’s about; several Republicans have said so. They also fear several other potential amendments where the priorities of the GOP legislative supermajority are way out of line with those of Ohioans, including replacing politicians drawing districts with an independent citizens panel; raising the minimum wage; and even possibly passing sane gun restrictions.

Most of what these politicians are saying about this August election to make constitutional amendments harder to pass at the ballot box is easily disproved hogwash. They’ve said we have to protect our constitution from being too easy to change — but getting an issue on the ballot, let alone passing it, is already a challenging process and doesn’t happen frequently. The issue the legislature has placed on the ballot for August also contains new rules for collecting signatures for such issues — rules that would essentially make it impossible for anyone but deep-pocket special-interest groups to ever do again.

Speaking of which, the most hilariously hypocritical argument some Ohio Republicans have made is that we need to protect the state constitution from deep-pocket out-of-state special interests. A few weeks ago it was revealed that secretive right-wing Illinois billionaire Richard Uihlein was pouring money into Ohio supporting the push for an August election to make ballot issues harder to pass. Go figure.

At this point, Ohioans have almost no influence on their government; calling the state a “representative democracy” is laughable. Now those in power want to strip away one of our few avenues for lining up policy with the welfare of the state’s people. Mark down August 8 on your calendar, and make sure you are registered. The final day for registration is July 10.

Double check to make sure you have the required ID as well. They changed the rules there as well to shut more people out of the process, despite not having cited a single example of anyone committing in-person voter fraud that could’ve been stopped with stricter ID regulations. Not one. It’s the new Jim Crow, moved north to Ohio.

If you’d like to know more about the reproductive rights issue, the League of Women Voters of Lakewood is hosting a forum at the Lakewood Public Library of Detroit Avenue on Tuesday May 23 @ 7pm. Speakers will include state senator Nickie Antonio, reproductive rights specialist Jessie Hill of CWRU’s School of Law, Dr. Arthur Lavin of Doctors for Organized Healthcare Solutions, the Rev. Anthony Makar from West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church, Susan Shaw of Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights, ad former Lakewood City Council member Pam Smith. It’s free and open to all.

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