Gerrymandered Ohio Legislature Slowly Removing Democracy

[Jimmy Higgins]

This lame duck session in Ohio is seeing the gerrymandered Ohio State Legislature making modifications where necessary to ensure certain thing.

• More election reform
  • Why? Who the fuck knows the excuse. But they want to change things up. I mean, the funny thing is, under Gov. Taft, the GOP opened up voting a lot. And then 2006 happened, and they decided that might be too much. And since 2020, they've followed suit with other GOP powers and have been pushing for legislation that reduces access to the ballot. Even after the 2022 election, where I'm not aware of any fraud allegations at all.
  • Changes include no longer:
    • Allows employees at the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles to update voter information, such as a change of name or address, and ask people if they want to register to vote.
    • Lets the secretary of state and other officials mail unsolicited absentee ballot applications.
    • Permits voters who can't physically enter a polling place to vote curbside.
    • Allows voters to use utility bills or bank statements as identification. Seitz said this change is in anticipation of a separate Senate bill that would require photo identification to vote and provide Ohioans with free state IDs.

  • House Bill 294 would also allow election officials to set up three ballot drop boxes at one location in the county, which advocates worry could limit access for voters in both urban and rural areas. It also lets Ohioans request an absentee ballot online and eliminates in-person early voting the Monday before Election Day, redistributing those hours to other days.
    The bill, sponsored by Reps. Bill Seitz, R-Green Township, and Sharon Ray, R-Wadsworth, got a mixed response from voting rights groups when it was introduced in 2021, with some comparing it to a Georgia law that critics feared would make it harder to vote.

• School board reform? Why not?
  • Yeah, the Democrats did well in the election for the school board, so that means it is time to remove power from the school board (op-ed) and give it directly to the Ohio Governor.

  • This bill seeks to authorize the governor’s office to take over the oversight of K-12 curriculum standards and textbooks and give it to the governor’s executive workforce. Our elected state board of education would be left with perfunctory duties, such as the licensing of superintendents and teachers. The state board under this “restructuring” would be stripped of most of its educational responsibilities, which would be put under a new cabinet position as overseen the governor.

• Increase standard for Constitutional Referendums to 60% from 50%
  • Yeah, 50% was okay when using gay marriage bans to get out the vote, but if the Ohio public wants to protect a woman's right to her body... that needs to be 60%. The Ohio GOP knows that 2024 could get ugly and go blue with abortion on the ballot, and they certainly don't want women to have rights to their body either. A lose-lose... so let's just change the law on expanding rights. I mean fucking casinos and marijuana can get enshrined in the Constitution with a majority vote, but not a woman's right to the most intimate level of privacy possible.

  • The new amendment would require petition-based amendments to pass with 60% of the vote, instead of a simple majority. A simple majority is 50% plus one vote.
    “The Ohio Constitution is supposed to serve as a framework of our state government not as a tool for special interests,” the secretary said. “Requiring a broad consensus majority of at least 60% for passing a petition-based constitutional amendment provides a good government solution to promote compromise and to have a historically proven record of passage.”

Sorry Ohio folk, but the GOP doesn't think your contrary opinions matter anymore.

 

[zorq]

Regarding the constitution amendment process... Theoretically, I agree that constitution amendments should require a bit more than a simple majority. The GOP excuse isn't without merit, but I simply don't trust anything the GOP does these days. They just don't act in the interests of the people at all anymore. It is all about maintaining their own power.

Also, shouldn't it require an amendment to the constitution to change the rules for amending the constitution?

 

[bilby]

Regarding the constitution amendment process... Theoretically, I agree that constitution amendments should require a bit more than a simple majority. The GOP excuse isn't without merit, but I simply don't trust anything the GOP does these days. They just don't act in the interests of the people at all anymore. It is all about maintaining their own power.

Also, shouldn't it require an amendment to the constitution to change the rules for amending the constitution?

Well perhaps you should write your congressman, and ask him to propose an amendment to the constitution, to require an amendment to the constitution, in order to make an amendment to the constitution.