In a desperate attempt to thwart the will of Ohio voters, who support access to legal abortion by a wide margin, anti-choice Republican politicians have put a democracy-limiting initiative on the ballot in August. Their goal is to stop Ohio voters from passing a constitutional amendment protecting legal access to abortion that will be on the ballot in November. As one journalist has written, the Republican initiative “is a cynical means to an autocratic end.”
Issue 1, which will be before voters on August 8, would make it much harder to get any constitutional amendment on the ballot, and would require a 60 percent supermajority from voters to amend the state’s constitution, rather than the majority vote requirement that has been in place for more than a century. The reason for the sudden urgency to make this change: the likelihood that Ohio voters will support a constitutional amendment protecting legal access to abortion.
Shameless Republican politicians had to break election rules they had recently written in order to put Issue 1 on the ballot in August, when they hoped the right-wing political machine could generate enough votes in a low-turnout election. But recent polls show that Ohio voters oppose Issue 1 by a large margin, and early voting, which began July 11, has been unexpectedly strong.
On Thursday, national religious-right political group My Faith Votes sent supporters an email from former Arkansas governor and failed presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, the group’s honorary chairman. The email asks for donations to support My Faith Votes’ work “to urgently rally Christians” to support Issue 1. Huckabee’s email claims that Issue 1 is necessary to stop leftist “plotting” and defeat “deceptive and misleading messaging.”
In reality, it’s Issue 1 supporters who are trying to deceive and mislead voters. Some dubious ads by Issue 1’s proponents don’t even mention the state’s constitution; they try to convince voters that it’s about parental rights or children getting gender affirming medical care. Others publicly portray it as a good-government measure while trying to rally anti-choice voters with abortion-focused messaging.
The Associated Press has called out misinformation from LifeNews.com, which falsely suggested that the November abortion referendum would permit “abortions up to birth,” and from Right to Life of Greater Cincinnati, which sent an email “claiming without evidence that sex traffickers and abortion providers were ‘evil twins’ working together to ‘aid and abet’ one another.”
An email this week from the right-wing group Catholic Vote portrayed Issue 1—which would restrict voters’ power to amend the constitution—as an effort to let voters “take back their constitution.” The email also falsely claimed that the defeat of Issue 1 would “allow Big Abortion and leftist radicals to run roughshod over parental rights and impose abortion without any limits in their state.”
Family Research Council senior fellow Ken Blackwell appeared this week on WallBuilders live, where he told host Rick Green that he had been “criss-crossing the state” in what he described as “a battle with the pro-abortionists” and “the radical left.” Blackwell, who was notorious for his voter-suppression efforts when he was Ohio’s secretary of state, promoted Trump’s election lies and was involved in behind-the-scenes efforts to keep Trump in power after his 2020 defeat.
Faith2Action, the Ohio-based abortion-ban advocacy group led by Janet Porter, is partnering with religious-right legal group Liberty Counsel to encourage conservative churches to show Porter’s pro-Issue 1 video, distribute “vote yes” literature and yard signs, and use their worship services to talk about the issue and recruit volunteers. They are also encouraging Christian radio to play Porter’s ad as a public service announcement.
Some Issue 1 backers have publicly portrayed it as necessary to protect the state’s constitution from out-of-state money, but they haven’t objected to far-right megafunder Richard Uihlein, an out-of-state billionaire, dropping more than $1 million into the effort.
While Republican politicians are trying to block passage of an abortion rights amendment in November, if Issue 1 passes it will also make it harder for voters to get around GOP legislators’ blockade on other issues like minimum wage or redistricting. “While abortion is on the ballot right now, minimum wage is on the ballot next,” Kayla Griffin, Ohio state director of All Voting Is Local Action, told the AP, adding, “We are bigger and our democracy is far bigger than a single issue, and we have to be able to navigate that when we go to the ballot box.”
Issue 1 is being opposed by a broad non-partisan grassroots coalition that is committed to protecting the principle of one person one vote and preserving majority rule in Ohio. People For the American Way is urging its Ohio members to vote no on Issue 1.
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