I’m staying away from TV news these days now that Trump’s mounting legal challenges will dominate it with a barrage of spins, opinions, and forecasts. The news in print instead gives me the freedom to delve into the topics which pique my interest, and without suffering through the pervasive TV drug commercials that appear ad nauseum. One recent news item in particular may be an indicator about the fate of our democracy during these turbulent times and contentious politics.
In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court justified its decision overruling Roe with an appeal to democracy, ultimately returning the power to regulate abortion to the people and their elected representatives. And it appears the American people are making good on that gesture.
During the 2022 midterm election cycle, abortion rights won in all of the six states with abortion ballot measures, including in red states like Kansas, Kentucky, and Montana. Michigan, Vermont, and California were the other states where voters overwhelmingly supported reproductive freedom. In Kansas, where Trump won handily in 2020 and registered Republicans outnumber Democrats almost two to one, the pro-choice side won by a nearly 20-point margin.
How to get issues on the ballot varies from state to state. In some cases, citizens can collect signatures, while in others, lawmakers have to approve turning issues over to voters. In Michigan, activists collected more than 750,000 signatures to get their abortion rights measure on the November ballot. In Montana, Kentucky, and Kansas by contrast, Republican lawmakers had voted to place their anti-abortion measures on the ballot.
In light of the above pro-abortion rights victories, Republican lawmakers in Ohio recently concocted a ballot initiative as a countermeasure against the use of referendums, initiatives, and ballot questions to protect abortion rights. Their purpose was to curtail or obstruct the use of direct democracy that allows voters to register their preferences directly, bypassing elected officials and other intermediaries.
Even though their gambit failed on Aug. 8, it reveals how Ohio Republican lawmakers are willing to disenfranchise their own constituents from amending the state Constitution, almost certainly to prevent reproductive freedom from being enshrined in the state’s charter.
“Since 1912, the state’s Constitution has allowed citizens to place a constitutional amendment directly on the ballot by gathering signatures totaling at least 10 percent of votes cast in the most recent election for governor (along with county requirements and other provisions). After a proposed amendment is on the ballot, a simple majority is all that is required to amend the state Constitution. Ohio lawmakers want to raise that threshold to 60 percent.” (Melissa Murray and Ann Shaw, The New York Times)
Raising the threshold for adopting an amendment to 60 percent of votes would put the fate of any proposed amendment in greater doubt. In two polls, 58 percent and 59 percent of Ohio respondents supported granting a constitutional right to abortion access.
Other provisions in the Ohio referendum would raise almost insurmountable hurdles to putting amendments on the ballot. One required backers of amendments to gather a minimum number of signatures from all 88 Ohio counties instead of the current 44 counties.
Ohio is not the only state to contrive such schemes. In Arkansas this March, the legislature substantially increased the number of counties from which signatures must be collected to qualify an initiative for the ballot. Republican lawmakers in Missouri, North Dakota, and Mississippi have gone to great lengths to try to change the rules around state voter initiatives, apparently to limit voters’ ability to directly register their preferences on abortion and reproductive rights.
“Viewed together, these efforts paint a disturbing portrait of Republican officials who are afraid of their constituents when it comes to abortion and who are taking increasingly aggressive steps to prevent voters from making their voices heard.” (Murray and Shaw, The New York Times)
Now that voters in Ohio soundly rejected the Republican-backed attempt to raise the threshold for changing the state’s Constitution to 60 percent in a ballot initiative, a follow-up election will take place in November. Ohio voters will decide then whether to establish a right to abortion in the state’s Constitution; a simple majority will decide the outcome.
Nicole Wells Stallworth, the executive director for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan, expressed jubilation and hope for the prospects of people advocating for their rights and protections nationwide. She declared, “This resounding victory now provides a model for the future of coalition-based reproductive ballot initiatives all across the country.”
The outcome in Ohio is robust evidence that the Supreme Court sending the issue back to the states — and what Republicans have attempted to do with that — has turned into a strategic liability for the GOP. Raising the threshold to 60 percent failed last year in both Arkansas and South Dakota. Raising it to 55 percent also failed in South Dakota back in 2018.
These ballot initiatives and results send a compelling message throughout America, that people have constitutionally enshrined means to have their voices heard by purposefully exercising direct democracy to systematically address any issue of societal importance. This is a bedrock principle of our democracy.
“Direct democracy is by no means a panacea. But it is an important mechanism for preserving a role for the people. That’s especially true at this moment, with grossly gerrymandered legislatures passing draconian bans that endanger women’s health and freedom — and with threats to democracy extending well beyond the topic of abortion.” (Murray and Shaw, The New York Times)
Dr. William Kolbe, an Andover resident, is a retired high school and college teacher, former Peace Corps volunteer in Tonga and El Salvador, and a mentor in Big Friends Little Friends, a program of Family Services of the Merrimack Valley. He can be reached at bila.kolbe9@gmail.com