Ohio voters reject higher bar for altering constitution, a win for abortion rights supporters
Ahead of a November vote on abortion rights, Republican lawmakers wanted voters to make it more difficult to amend the state constitution
With about 88 percent of votes counted Tuesday night, 56.5 percent voted against the proposal, while 43.5 percent supported it. The Associated Press projected the measure would fail.
Republican state lawmakers decided to try to make it tougher to amend the constitution as reproductive rights advocates gathered signatures of support this spring for a November measure that would guarantee access to abortion. Because of those stakes, Tuesday’s election became a proxy fight over abortion, which is expected to again be a defining issue in the 2024 election.
From the start, Republican leaders were clear that they wanted to make the abortion rights measure more difficult to pass, but they also embraced the proposal more broadly, arguing that modifications to the state constitution should have overwhelming support. Opponents of changing the rules called the measure anti-democratic, saying the nation is founded on the idea of majority rule.
“People showed up, they were fired up, and quite frankly they were fed up,” said Rep. Shontel M. Brown (D-Ohio), an opponent of the ballot measure. “I think this demonstrated that issues are still important, messaging still matters and the power still belongs to the people.”
When the race was called, cheers went up at the Northwood Cider Company in suburban Cincinnati, where Democrats gathered to watch results roll in. They clinked their glasses in celebration and said they would quickly turn their attention to passing the abortion rights measure in November.
“Tomorrow we sleep, and Thursday we get back to work,” Isaac Goff-Mitchell, the executive director of the Hamilton County Democratic Party, told the crowd of about 100.
The antiabortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America called the results “a warning for pro-life states across the nation,” arguing that Republicans had not done enough to persuade voters to change the rules for amending the constitution.
“So long as the Republicans and their supporters take the ostrich strategy and bury their heads in the sand, they will lose again and again,” the group said in its statement.
The measure, known as Issue 1, was the only item on the ballot. Supporters and opponents spent millions of dollars on their campaigns, and early turnout was high for an election held during a normally sleepy political season. More than 600,000 people voted early, more than twice as many as voted early in the May 2022 primary for U.S. Senate.
The special election drew national attention. Mike Pence, the former vice president seeking the GOP nomination for president, released a video Tuesday urging Ohioans to vote “yes” so they could block the November abortion rights amendment, “stop the radical left” and “save Ohio.” Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), meanwhile, in a Twitter post called on voters to cast “no” ballots because “voting rights and reproductive freedoms are on the line.”
Since the Supreme Court last year ended a nationwide right to abortion, voters in three states backed state constitutional amendments ensuring access to the procedure: Michigan, Vermont and California. In addition, voters in two conservative-leaning states, Kansas and Kentucky, rejected referendums that would have changed their constitutions to explicitly say they do not provide a right to abortion.
Tuesday’s vote could foreshadow the outcome of the abortion measure in November. According to a July poll from USA Today and Suffolk University, 58 percent of likely voters in Ohio supported the abortion rights ballot measure.
Voters had abortion on their minds as they went to the polls Tuesday.
Retired attorney Richard Russeth, 67, voted against the measure Tuesday at an elementary school in Middletown, a city of 50,000 between Cincinnati and Dayton.
“I am not against having a supermajority, but they are only doing this to defeat abortion,” he said. “They are changing the rules in the middle of the game and that doesn’t fly with me.”
Several miles away, in rural Wayne Township, Jim Gentry, 84, said he voted for the measure because of his opposition to abortion.
“I don’t want them fooling with the constitution,” said Gentry, a retired truck driver.
In recent years, Republicans in a handful of states have sought to make it more difficult to pass citizen-led initiatives after a string of liberal policies — from expanding Medicaid to raising the minimum wage — have been placed on the ballot.
Last year, such efforts to raise the voter threshold failed in South Dakota and Arkansas, and attempts to schedule a similar vote in Missouri were unsuccessful this spring. In Arizona, voters narrowly approved a state constitutional amendment requiring 60 percent of voters to greenlight measures enacting a new tax.
“Ohio is going to shape the contours of this conversation going forward,” said Sarah Walker, the policy and legal advocacy director at the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, which helps with liberal ballot measures.
Speaking before the race was called, she said: “If it’s a resounding defeat, it will send a very strong message that it is not in the interest of policymakers to attempt to restrict the citizen-initiative process.”
In Ohio, millions of dollars flowed to both opponents and proponents of the measure, from within the state and outside it. Groups that support the November abortion rights effort and those opposing Tuesday’s ballot measure have raised about $25 million. Those on the other side have secured about $20 million, according to campaign finance filings.
Michael Gonidakis, the president of Ohio Right to Life, lobbied the state legislature for months to try to make it harder to pass constitutional amendments. Those efforts were successful in May, and since then, he has traveled across the state pitching the argument that powerful out-of-state groups want to wield outsize influence on Ohio.
“Bottom line is we’re going to have to work harder now — we know that,” Gonidakis said Tuesday night.
He added: “I think Ohioans are going to regret not taking this opportunity to protect our constitution because hundreds of millions of dollars are going to be poured in this state.”
Supporters of Tuesday’s measure argued that raising the threshold for constitutional amendments was about more than abortion. They pointed to an array of other liberal-leaning issues that could appear on future ballots, such as raising the minimum wage and legalizing marijuana. They contended that it is too easy to amend the state constitution and that there should be a high bar for modifying it like there is for the U.S. Constitution.
“A simple 50 percent-plus-one majority shouldn’t be able to change the rules that we use to govern our state,” said Frank LaRose, Ohio’s Republican secretary of state, who has launched a bid for U.S. Senate. “This is about protecting our state constitution.”
Abortion rights advocates banded with other groups to reject Tuesday’s measure, and they cheered the results.
“Seeing this Issue 1 go down in this crushing defeat just is proof that these extremists are out of touch with what the people of Ohio want,” said Lauren Beene, executive director of Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights.
Her group and others are now turning their attention to November.
“This is the first step, but it was an important step,” said Kellie Copeland, the treasurer of Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights. “We have our work cut out for us, and we’re confident that we’re going to win in November, but there’s a lot of miles to go before we get there.”
Other groups largely avoided discussion of abortion when they talked about Issue 1, and they argued that it is unfair to let a minority block the will of the voters.
“This ability to take something to the ballot and have a constitutional amendment is our last line of defense,” said Melissa Cropper, the president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers. “That’s the beauty of being in Ohio, is that we have the ability to go to the ballot and make a change. And we shouldn’t be sacrificing it.”
Tim Burga, the president of the Ohio AFL-CIO, said Issue 1 failed because of “massive overreach by the legislative backers.”
“They just disregarded the will of the people,” he said. “They overstepped and overplayed their hand in epic proportions.”
The day the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion, a ban went into effect in Ohio on abortion after fetal cardiac activity is detected, often at six weeks of pregnancy. But nearly three months later, in September 2022, a Hamilton County judge blocked the abortion ban, and a lawsuit is wending its way through the courts.
More recently, abortion rights supporters gathered signatures at places like grocery stores, religious centers, large concerts and festivals in a quest to get a measure protecting access to abortion on the ballot this November. The secretary of state determined in July that their effort was successful. Two Republicans have sued to try to block the November election.
The focus of Tuesday’s vote was on the higher threshold it would set for passing future constitutional amendments. But the measure would also have made it tougher to place initiatives on the ballot in the first place by requiring signatures to be gathered in all 88 of Ohio’s counties instead of just 44.
Brenda Perkins, 66, voted against the measure at Rosa Parks Elementary School in Middletown. Perkins, a retired teacher, reflected on the national attention on the special election.
“The whole world,” she said, “is watching Ohio.
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