Well, Ohio GOP leaders are engaging in an effort to make it significantly harder for
voters to amend the state's constitution.
And abortion advocates say that this is a direct attempt to block any voter driven
effort to protect reproductive rights and abortion in the state constitution.
Now, here's what the Ohio GOP is up to.
This is what they're trying to do.
Secretary of State Frank LaRose and state Representative Brian Stewart
are spearheading an effort to require this is very familiar 60% of voters
to enact citizen led amendments instead of a simple majority of 50% plus one vote.
The measure unveiled Thursday comes in the form of an approved, I'm sorry,
a proposed amendment that voters would need to approve before it takes effect.
Now the resolution introduced by Stewart needs to pass both the State House and
Senate with 60% of the vote to be placed on the ballot.
LaRose said he hopes to put the question before voters in the May election,
which means the legislature would need to pass it by the end of the year.
Now keep in mind that Republicans do in fact hold supermajorities in both
the House and the Senate, so
no democratic support is needed in order to advance this measure.
And here's what the Ohio State Representative Brian Stewart has to
say about the effort.
Ohio's constitution has been far too susceptible to efforts by
outside groups and special interests seeking
to alter the people's constitution to achieve their own ends.
We have repeatedly watched a special interests by their way onto
the statewide ballot and then spend millions of dollars drowning
the airwaves seeking to secure fundamental changes to our state.
Now, as we have experienced with the legislative filibuster in the Senate,
getting a 60% vote in favor of something is incredibly difficult to do.
And so especially when you consider how the demographics of voters are split.
And when I talk about demographics,
I'm specifically talking about like political ideology and party affiliation.
And so, it looks like Republicans are poised to make this happen.
And this is what happens when you are part of a political ideology that's incredibly
unpopular.
You essentially have to give yourself the leg up in the democratic process
to make it increasingly difficult for people who oppose you to be able to
make their votes count in opposing you, and that's what's happening.
>> Okay, so this is even more nefarious than most people are reporting.
So number one of course they realize, We're the minority, it turns out.
And they gerrymandered Ohio and many other states so
badly that they have supermajorities,
even though they lose overwhelmingly on issues like abortion.
I think it is 68% of people in Ohio are pro choice.
Okay, 84% say that there should be exceptions for rape or incest,
but the Ohio Gerrymandered government says no exception for rape or incest,
screw 84% of our citizens, we don't care what they think.
What do you think this is a democracy?
And then people like, okay, well let's put it on a ballot measure and
see what they actually think.
No, that's why they wanna increase it to 60% cuz they know that they're unpopular.
But it's not just about abortion,
it's about many other things too $15 minimum wage is passing everywhere.
Any ballot measure to increase the minimum wage passes,
it doesn't matter how red the state is, right?
So they're like, no, that would hurt our beloved corporations, our donors, stop it,
stop them from passing these goddamn laws.
What are we in a democracy?
We had a perfect racket here, we totally cornered the market.
And by the way, the other thing they cornered is corporate media and
democratic opposition.
Even though 68% of Ohio's agree with Nan Whaley who ran for
governor, she lost by 26 points.
How do you lose that badly?
I mean, I know that there are other issues, by the way,
in all the economic issues, the people agreed with Nan Whaley.
But the Democratic Party is so incompetent and mainstream media never points out,
the real problems with the Republicans like this is an outrage.
They're trying to steal democracy right from underneath you.
Go ahead, turn on any local news in Ohio and see if they tell you that
the Republicans are trying to steal your democracy away from you.
They would never say that cuz they would say, no,
we have to be politically correct.
We can't tell our audience was actually correct.
We have to be politically correct and say maybe you don't need democracy.
Maybe the Republicans are trying to help democracy by taking it away from you.
>> Now keep in mind that proponents of abortion rights in the State
of Ohio were thinking to organize an effort to put abortion
rights in a ballot initiative in upcoming elections.
They wanna ban Ohio's six week abortion ban, which by the way, six week
abortion ban just means that the abortions are banned period in the State of Ohio,
most women don't know they're pregnant six weeks and they know that.
But Secretary of State Frank LaRose denies that this effort to
require a 60% vote has anything to do with the abortion matter.
He says, quote, if somebody thinks that their favorite issue is not capable of
mustering a 60% vote, then maybe they should think twice about proposing that
as a constitutional amendment, your favorite issue, abortion pulls a 32%.
So you're not capable of mustering 50% let alone 60%.
Right?
So by your own definition, you should figure out a different way to do it.
No, they're never gonna let you have an actual voice in what was supposed to be
your government.
By the way.
You wanna know a great irony of this.
The measure to make sure that other measures require 60%
only has to pass by 50%.
So they're not even holding themselves to the same standard,
they're like, obviously, yeah, it is 100%.
So in the legislature it's different requirements.
But for the ballot measure to pass,
to make it super hard to pass other ballot measures, you only need 50% plus one.
Okay, so there's no end to their irony here.
And by the way, they're not the only ones trying to do this right now.
Similar supermajority proposals are being proposed in Arkansas, Missouri and
South Dakota, by the way, what are all three of those places?
Three red states that have all passed very popular progressive ballot measures,
Missouri overwhelmingly voted for higher minimum wage.
South Dakota voted against corruption.
And and by the Arkansas also voted for higher minimum wage, and they hate that.
So the corporate executives are telling the republican politicians remember who
you work for, make sure you snuff out the voters and any rights that they have.
So we retain control