Ohioans vote Tuesday on a measure that would make it harder to pass future changes to the state constitution. Ideastream’s Karen Kasler explains the possible implications for abortion access in Ohio.

Sources:

NPR: A look ahead at the Ohio special election

Five Thirty Eight: Everything You Need To Know About The Ohio Ballot Measure That Could Block Abortion Rights

CNN: Ohio special election becomes proxy for abortion rights fight

PBS News Hour: Ohio voters to decide on constitutional change before determining abortion rights

The Guardian: Republicans pushed a special election in Ohio – what does it mean for abortion rights?

Slate: The Cardboard-Box Billionaires Are at It Again, This Time in Ohio The Uihleins have put millions of dollars toward preventing a vote on abortion in the state.

  • ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    Good analysis as usual from 538: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/ohio-issue-1-abortion-ballot-measures/

    For those who haven’t seen coverage yet, in brief: as usual republicans saw a defeat coming in a democratic election (the 50%+1 threshold November ballot initiative to enshrine reproductive rights into Ohio’s constitution), so they are attempting to change the rules in their favor (require constitutional amendments to get 60% of the vote, effectively allowing minority rule) in an early off-season ballot measure today.

    Despite the early positive indications that this measure has an uphill battle, if you are in Ohio please vote.

  • OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee
    0·
    1 year ago

    I actually think you should make it somewhat difficult to do direct democracy votes. There was a crisis in California a while back because the voters decided to mandate taxes don’t go up, and also spending does go up substantially. As separate propositions, both things sound good, but the reason for little-r republican representation is that if your legislator did both those things and caused a crisis you would vote them out. People in charge of institutions have longer term responsibility.

    Or look at Brexit where a slight majority voted for it and a majority now regret it since it caused all the economic pain and political chaos everyone was saying it would.

    So I think there is an argument for the threshold being above 50%, I think 60% is pretty high but you can make the argument, maybe something in the middle is reasonable. Preferable to me is something like a double approval process…any amendment needs to get approved by 50%+, followed by a mandatory vote in the legislature and if confirmed it would become law, but if it fails it would get another public vote where it would need to get 50%+ and if it got it, become law.

    All that said, I don’t want abortion banned in Ohio, I know that’s pretty heavily a part of this vote in particular but just wanted to talk about the actual argument for a bit.