Ohio voters have abortion amendment on ballot.

It only took six votes for Ohio to find itself in this position. But for that this would have never happened.

 

Not sure what you mean. Please explain.

 

As a matter of political science, I usually disagree with direct democracy initiative processes. But historically, they arose out of times when there was a perception that significant minority interest had a strangle hold on the normal democratic /republican processes by which self-governance is expressed. And that's what it appears to me is happening here. And it's not just the elevated percentage, standing alone; it's all the ways to try to undermine democracy, which has has taken on a myriad of forms in a very conscious coordinated attempt to enshrine minority rule

 

The women of Ohio wouldn’t be subjugated but for 6 looney tune religious nutters on the SCOTUS

 

Churches have nothing to do with this issue.

 

With 58% of Ohioans wanting this amendment to pass, hopefully they'll get out the vote in the special election to stop the mid-game rule change.

 

I can understand the desire to boost amendments up higher than 50%. Seems to me the bar should be high and should represent some degree of permanence. You can get a wave coupled with opposition apathy and get something through with 50%. Just look at the UK with Brexit. It has been a catastrophe and now something like 57% oppose Brexit.

The bar is very high to amend the US constitution.

 

If you can amend the constitution with 50.01%, you can also repeal the amendment with 50.01%. A simple majority allows the people to enact their own legislation when their elected representatives refuse to do the job. As for the bar being high to amend our federal Constitution, that's a bug, not a feature.

 

It’s not a simple matter to repeal an amendment. It takes another constitutional amendment, which requires gathering the requisite number of signatures and going through the qualification process. Then it requires raising enough funds to pay for the advertising effort, while going up against often times vested interests with deep pockets.

In recent times, large corporations have discovered they can make lots of money through the amendment process. Two large gaming companies partnered to flood the state with advertising and passed a constitutional amendment granting them sole monopolies for casinos in four Ohio cities. They passed it with 53% of the vote. The promised number of jobs and revenue to the state has fallen woefully short of what their ads promised.

An investor consortium sought to establish a cartel for marijuana growth and distribution in Ohio and funded the recent constitutional amendment to legalize the weed. At least voters remembered the snow job on gambling and barely rejected the reefer madness.

This article illustrates some of the pros and cons of the constitutional amendment process. Interestingly, for a constitutional amendment to be generated by the General Assembly, it must pass both houses with a 3/5 majority vote, that is, 60%.

“Buckeye Democracy:” Ohioans can amend their constitution by going directly to voters

 

That's exactly the point. It takes the same efforts to amend the constitution as it does to repeal an amendment.

Sounds like democracy to me. Nothing stops them from repealing the gaming amendment if people are unhappy. (You're also barking up the wrong tree if you think I'd be worried by the idea of legalizing marijuana. )

That only makes sense. The legislature can already make law with a simple majority.

 

Big Question here: If the amendment fails, will you and the other pro abortion folks accept the will of the people?

 

I accepted Roe v Wade because it’s was the law of the land. But it wasn’t decided in a democratic forum. The fact that you won’t accept democracy is pretty pathetic. Further, it’s pro abortion, not pro-choice. You don’t get to bastardized the English language to fit your narrative. Everything in life is “pro choice.” That term means absolutely nothing unless your choice is known. Your attempt to co-opt the term to make you feel better about your choices is denied. You support abortion. You own that.

 

Maybe in a perfect world, but grassroots efforts typically can’t raise the money to go against big corporations.

Don’t you mean barking up the wrong stalk?

That doesn’t follow it at all. However, if it did, then it means the pass level for constitutional amendments by initiative needs to change. Citizens can already pass legislation through initiative with a simple majority, just like the legislature. So to be consistent, if the legislature needs 60% to pass a constitutional amendment, so should the direct public.

 

That criticism applies just as much to political elections as it does to citizens ballot initiatives.

If the people of Ohio want to weaken their voting power, that's on them. I'd consider it a foolish decision. But they'll have a chance to vote on it. Of course, the flip side is true too. They could also put up for a vote lowering the threshold for the legislature to pass a constitutional amendment.

And bluntly, I really don't care about consistency. I support the majority having maximum ability to bypass the legislature when it's not doing its job.

(I also don't know the procedure for repealing a statute enacted by citizen initiative, but if it's as simple as repealing any other statute, that would allow the legislature to undermine the process by immediately repealing any statute the people enact, which would again justify the constitutional scheme only requiring a majority as a means of bypassing the legislature and preventing it from thwarting the people's will.)

 

A constitutional provision should be harder to repeal/impose by citizen initiative than a statute. Just my opinion, but also consistent with the idea of the Constitution we are expounding.

But again, citizen initiatives arose out of a prior time when moneyed interest completely controlled the legislative process and that even broadly popular measures had no chance; there was no way to petition for the redress of grievances through the ordinary democratic process. It was one of the bundle of reforms from that Progressive Era.

And I would say viewpoint actually justified not just on this issue, but generally now, especially based on Supreme Court jurisprudence regarding money in politics, gerrymandering, and the inability to prosecute for public corruption. It is an attempt to entrench minority rule, not protect minority rights. That requires some deviation from the normal political science models

 

Disagree. A constitutional provision should be harder for the legislature to repeal. If a majority of people in the state support something, they should have the ability to make it law without having to worry about the legislature undoing or undermining it. That is particularly true today with gerrymandering.

 

Certified by Ohio Supreme Court. Threshold needed TBD

 

Disagree in general, but very very sympathetic to the point about captured legislatures. And of course in Florida, the Legislature defies the public even if an initiative is passed.