On November 6 Ohioans will get the opportunity to vote on whether to change the state constitution. While Issue 1 will ask voters if they want to reduce penalties for nonviolent drug offenders, the fact that enough valid signatures were collected to put the initiative on the ballot for citizens to decide for themselves is the real story.
The fact is, in conservative states such as Ohio, many elected officials are out of touch with the electorate. If a bill to achieve the same end — to reduce penalties for nonviolent drug offenders — was introduced in the Ohio House or Senate, it would go nowhere since the majority of legislators are fearful of appearing “soft on crime.” But the same voters they are afraid would vote them out of office for supporting such a bill will most likely vote to pass it when it’s on the ballot this fall. Legislators are clearly out of touch with the changing times.
The petitioners — the folks that collected the signatures — had to submit at least 305,591 valid signatures from at least 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties, and in each of those counties they had to collect enough signatures to equal five percent of the total vote cast for governor in the most recent gubernatorial election in 2014. They submitted 351,095 valid signatures and also met the five percent requirement in 50 counties.
A broad coalition of faith, business, civic and law enforcement leaders are backing the measure since it will begin to reduce mass incarceration numbers. The initiative will make “possessing, obtaining or using a drug or drug paraphernalia a misdemeanor offense, with a maximum punishment of 180 days in jail and $1,000 fine. First and second offenses within a two-year period could only be punished with probation.”
It will also “give convicted people a half day credit against their sentence for each day of rehabilitative work or programming, up to 25 percent of the total sentence, spare individuals on probation from a felony offense for nonviolent violations of that probation, and allow people convicted of such crimes to petition a court to reclassify the offense as a misdemeanor, which could result in their release from prison.” While the proposed changes don’t make for perfection, they are a vast improvement over our current archaic laws.
A scant five years ago it would have been difficult to obtain enough valid signatures to put such a measure on the ballot, but a number of things have changed in Ohio, as well as across the country. A measure to allow felons to vote is going to be on the ballot in Florida this fall, and if it passes you can be sure a similar measure will be on the ballot in the nine other states that currently bar felons from voting.
What is happening in America is that the chasm, the gulf between conservatives and progressives is widening, and doing so at an accelerated pace. And while those on the right are becoming more entrenched than ever in their reactionary positions, the moral high ground they have based their political beliefs on for centuries is crumbling under their feet, thanks to their fealty to Donald Trump.
Those who wrap themselves in the flag — American or Confederate — while thumping on a Bible are being shown to be nothing but hypocrites, and the voters in the middle are beginning to recognize this. The proof will come at the ballot boxes all over the country this fall. If there is not an overwhelming blue tide of repudiation of our current Washington leadership then the country indeed is in deep trouble.
Going forward, when state legislatures refuse to act on commonsense reforms, coalitions of progressives and unions now have the know-how, infrastructure and determination to collect enough signatures to put issues of the ballot, so that the will of the people, not career politicians, decide and determine the commonweal — what’s best for the majority of the people.