The election that could determine the future of democracy in Ohio In May, Republicans who control the state legislature abruptly sent a proposal to the ballot called Issue 1 that would make it much harder to change the constitution. If approved, a constitutional amendment would need 60% of the vote to pass instead of a … Read more
Multimillion-Dollar ‘Disinformation Campaign’ Seeks To Make Ohio’s Big Abortion Vote About ‘Sex Change’ Operations “There is absolutely nothing in the amendment that mentions or supersedes Ohio’s parental consent laws,” Beene said. “Their intentionally deceptive ad is the beginning of a multi-million-dollar disinformation campaign designed to raise unsubstantiated fears and distract from the fact that the … Read more
National liberal groups have taken up opposing Issue 1, casting it as a back-door attempt to keep abortion rights restricted. “For us, this is the marriage of the fight between the fight against reproductive freedom and the fight against democracy,” said Yasmin Radjy, executive director of the Democratic grassroots organizing group Swing Left. Read more … Read more
Nonpartisan experts say the ads are inaccurate and misleading, while reproductive rights advocates argue that they are misdirection designed to distract voters from protecting abortion rights, an issue on which the public does not side with the anti-abortion movement. Read more at NBC News
A court recently allowed an August special election to proceed that will allow lawmakers to raise the threshold of all future measures to a 60 percent supermajority. Abortion advocates contend the ballot measure was explicitly designed to make it more difficult for voters to pass their amendment. Read more on The Hill
The Foundation for Government Accountability, a Florida-based group affiliated with the alliance of conservative thinktanks called the State Policy Network, has played a key role in recent efforts to raise the threshold for passing citizen ballot initiatives from a simple majority to a supermajority, and to make it harder to place measures on the ballot … Read more
“It’s misleading, it’s deceptive, and if it weren’t so serious, it would be laughable,” O’Connor said in an interview that the process Ohio uses to allow citizens to amend its constitution has been in place since 1912. “When you keep changing the rules and moving the goalposts, you are intentionally silencing the vote of the … Read more
But Bernard’s lawyer, Alice Morical, said that Bernard did report child abuse in a manner consistent with Indiana law, since she informed a social worker at her university about the 10-year-old patient. Where HIPPA is concerned, Morical added, Bernard did not violate the law because her comments to The Indianapolis Star did not include identifying … Read more
The amendment is one of a raft of efforts in states across the country where extremist Republicans are taking drastic measures to circumvent the will of the public on issues like abortion, criminal justice, and education. Read more at The Intercept
Republicans want voters to raise the threshold for approving future amendments to the Ohio Constitution from a simple majority to 60%, before a possible November ballot measure to codify abortion rights in the constitution. A group of doctors and citizens is currently gathering signatures to put an abortion rights amendment on the November ballot. Read … Read more
