One might also consider the constitution’s position on public money allocated to non-public schools with religious ties: “No religious or other sect, or sect, shall ever have any exclusive right or control over any part of the school funds thereof. state.” That went out the window years ago.
Meanwhile, Republican leaders in the General Assembly have consolidated their power by drawing GOP-leaning districts for the Ohio House of Representatives and the Ohio Senate, then challenging the Ohio Supreme Court on the issue.
And to make majority rule even less likely in Columbus, Statehouse Republicans want to make it harder to change the state constitution. The goal: to fight against women’s right to choose abortion and derail a proposal to once and for all stop gerrymandering of General Assembly districts by either party.
For 111 years, the Ohio Constitution has required a statewide “yes” vote of 50% plus 1 if voters want to amend it. But the state’s No. 1, which Republican lawmakers nearly unanimously put on a statewide ballot for the Aug. 8 election, would raise the requirement to ratify constitutional amendments to 60 percent.
The goal: to derail a pro-choice abortion amendment, likely on the state ballot in November. That is, the GOP plan to block the pro-choice amendment would, in effect, empower a minority to override a majority, just like the Statehouse’s 2023 playbook “heads I win, queues you lose”.
Given that, to paraphrase German writer Bertolt Brecht, instead of having the voters elect the legislature, the Ohio legislature (led by the GOP) should elect the voters. You could argue that’s what the #1 status is meant to do.
It turns out that our “conservative” Republicans, who have run the General Assembly for nearly 30 years, are hungry for power, and they’re not about to give any of it back to Ohio voters. And here you thought even the lawyers in the county seat of the legislature would know, as the Ohio Constitution says, that “all political power is vested in the people.” It was a nice concept while it lasted.
Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University. You can contact him at tsuddes@gmail.com.
