Endangered Senate Democrat, Sherrod Brown, Gets Boost From Defeat of Ohio Anti-Abortion Ballot Measure

The resounding defeat of Issue 1 — a measure aimed at raising the bar for changing Ohio’s constitution — could potentially boost Senator Brown’s re-election efforts, while giving other Democrats solace that the issues of abortion and democracy apparently have not lost their potency since 2022.On the ballot in Ohio’s special election was Issue 1, which would have raised the requirement for changing the state’s constitution to 60 percent from 50 percent support. The measure also would have required that those trying to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot to collect signatures from all of the Buckeye State’s 88 counties; the previous requirement was 44.Ohioans rejected the ballot measure, at last count Wednesday afternoon, by a margin of 57 percent to 43 percent, maintaining the current requirements for altering the state constitution.While the measure itself would have affected the procedure for amending the constitution, Ohio Republicans were not shy saying it was aimed at preventing Ohioans from reinstating abortion rights in the state by popular referendum.Currently, abortion in the state is banned after six weeks, meaning many women wouldn’t even know that they’re pregnant before the window to receive a legal in-state abortion has passed.In May, Ohio’s secretary of state, Frank LaRose, a Republican, said at an event at Seneca County, “This is 100 percent about keeping a radical, pro-abortion amendment out of our constitution. The left wants to jam it in there this coming November.”The election was held in August despite a ban on elections during a month in which turnout is typically low. The ban was also pushed by Mr. LaRose. In the statehouse, the Republican majority passed a joint resolution in order to make a special exception to the new ban on August special elections specifically for Issue 1.“These unnecessary off-cycle elections aren’t good for taxpayers, election officials or the civic health of our state,” Mr. LaRose said at a 2022 legislative session. “It’s time for them to go.”The plan was characterized by opponents and critics as a “brazen, cynical, power grab,” in the words of one Democrat-aligned attorney who worked on a lawsuit challenging the scheduling of the vote, Emma Olson.The failure of Issue 1 despite all the machinations by the architects of the measure may not be a good look in the eye’s of the states voters, according to an associate editor at Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, Miles Coleman.Mr. LaRose, who announced his bid for the U.S. Senate just three weeks before voters rejected Issue 1, will now carry the baggage of the failed referendum throughout his campaign.“If I were Sherrod Brown I’d like to face Frank LaRose as my Republican opponent,” Mr. Coleman tells the Sun.While Mr. LaRose is far from sure to secure the nomination, as the Ohio GOP primary is expected to become a “slugfest,” in the words of the Ohio Democratic Party spokesman, Reeves Oyster, his role is pushing the apparently unpopular Issue 1 could be a liability.“By rejecting Issue 1, Ohioans rejected special interests and demanded that democracy remain where it belongs — in the hands of voters, not the rich and powerful,” Mr. Brown said of the results. “I am proud to stand with Ohioans in this fight.”Mr. Coleman says the special election results also indicate that Mr. Brown may have more room to gain support in certain areas of the state, like its many suburbs, which historically supported Republicans.Mr. Coleman doesn’t, though, think that Wednesday’s results indicate that Ohio will be a key presidential battleground, adding that abortion rights is “a tough issue for Republicans to address even in Republican-leaning states.”“A majority of Ohioans are comfortable with Republicans being in the majority in the legislature,” Mr. Coleman says. “This seemed to be a bridge too far.”The issue also proved effective in turning out voters, mostly in opposition of the proposal, with more than 3 million votes being cast on Wednesday, nearly three-quarters of the number of votes — 4.14 million — cast in the state’s Senate election last year.In terms of abortion rights at large, the results on Wednesday were a continuation of a trend going back to Kansas’s abortion rights referendum last year. Every time abortion rights have been on the ballot, they have won.Over the next year and a half, there will be popular referendums on abortion in three states, Ohio, Maryland, and New York, and there are potential ballot measures in the works in six more — Pennsylvania, Florida, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, and South Dakota.Abortion rights were not literally on the ballot on Wednesday. Rather, the referendum was on whether the state should adopt a minoritarian policy in terms of preventing constitutional amendments.The change would have effectively given the state legislature more power compared to the people of Ohio, and reduced their ability to affect government policy via direct democracy. On this topic, Mr. Coleman says, “It’s not surprising that voters did not want to vote to give themselves less power.”

Endangered Senate Democrat, Sherrod Brown, Gets Boost From Defeat of Ohio Anti-Abortion Ballot Measure

Endangered Senate Democrat, Sherrod Brown, Gets Boost From Defeat of Ohio Anti-Abortion Ballot Measure

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