Pubdate: Sun, 29 Sep 2013
Source: Columbus Dispatch (OH)
Copyright: 2013 The Columbus Dispatch
Contact:  http://www.dispatch.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/93
Author: Thomas Suddes
Note: Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain 
Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?197 (Marijuana - Medicinal - Ohio)

OHIO COULD BE HITTING THE BALLOT BOX, CALIFORNIA-STYLE

29 Sep 2013
The Columbus Dispatch

Ohio could be hitting the ballot box, California-style

Ohioans next year could confront a full crop of statewide ballot 
issues, ranging from medical marijuana to unionbusting. The Election 
Day mechanisms are called the "initiative" and "referendum" -$5 words 
for the power of voters:

To propose ("initiate") an Ohio constitutional amendment by voter 
petition, and submit such amendments directly to all voters for 
approval or rejection.

To propose ("initiate") an Ohio law by voter petition to the General 
Assembly, then, if legislators don't pass it, to ask all voters to pass it.

To demand, by voter petition, review by all voters of a law the 
General Assembly itself has written (the "referendum").

So, for instance, Ohioans next year may be asked to pass an 
"initiated" law to expand Medicaid in Ohio if the legislature doesn't 
pass such a measure.

Ohioans meanwhile may be asked to ratify "initiated" constitutional 
amendments to authorize medical use of marijuana; in an anti-abortion 
move, to legally apply the word "person" to human beings "at every 
stage of ... biological development ... including fertilization"; to 
require Ohio to sell "Clean Energy" bonds to help promote 
environmentally friendly energy production; to permit same-sex 
marriage; or to ratify a union-busting Right to Work (for Less) proposal.

Ohioans also may be asked to second-guess General Assembly passage 
last May of Substitute House Bill 7, which would effectively shut 
down so-called Internet or sweepstakes cafes in Ohio. The cafes claim 
they don't offer gambling - but also claim they're considered 
competitors, and thus Statehouse targets, of Ohio's four 
voter-authorized gambling casinos.

The state's voters added the initiative and referendum to the Ohio 
Constitution in September 1912, among a slew of other amendments 
proposed by a 1912 convention. The "I&R" aims to bypass the General 
Assembly when special interests or legislative cowardice - sound 
familiar? - block measure voters want passed. The I&R is sometimes 
called the "Oregon system." That state, a century ago, was considered 
a national model for so-called direct democracy.

In Oregon, according to Richard L. Neuberger, a great Oregon 
journalist and later a U.S. senator, "the power to govern was taken 
from the state capitol [in Salem] and put in the marketplace and on 
the hillside." By the 1930s, though, Neuberger found that "a 
distressingly large number of ... [initiated] proposals... have been 
started by groups that want to put money in their own wallets." The 
supreme Ohio example: A 2009 initiative, bankrolled by Penn National 
Gaming and Cavs owner Dan Gilbert, that gave them Ohio casino 
monopolies, with casinos in Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Toledo.

One irony of the 1912 Ohio I&R amendment is that some convention 
delegates who backed it hoped to use the initiative to later pass the 
socalled Single Tax in Ohio. The Single Tax, in the words of its 
father, Henry George, would "abolish all taxes save one single tax 
levied on the value of land."

That, to Ohio conservatives, was a red flag (in both senses); no way 
did they want voters to initiate a Single Tax law. So even now, 
though few Ohioans may know what the Single Tax is, their 
constitution still forbids using the initiative "to pass a law 
authorizing ... the levy of any single tax on land." You can rest 
easy, landlords.

Today, anyone who knows of California's countless problems also knows 
that the (once) Golden State's headaches are worsened by the slew of 
ballot issues that confronts California voters every election. Even 
so, California, Here I Come, seems to be the background music playing 
at Ohio's Statehouse, plagued with a lazy legislature - and a mob of 
fee-hungry campaign consultants. 
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom