Pubdate: Wed, 01 Jul 2015
Source: Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Copyright: 2015 Associated Press
Contact:  http://www.morningjournal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3569
Author: Carr Smyth

SENATORS DELAY VOTE ON ANTI-MONOPOLY ITEM AIMED AT POT

COLUMBUS (AP) - State lawmakers scrambled Tuesday to address warnings 
from lawyers across the political spectrum that an effort to ban 
monopolies from Ohio's constitution would have legal consequences far 
beyond scuttling a marijuana legalization effort this fall.

The powerful Senate Rules & Reference Committee was forced to defer 
its vote after two days of hearings and hours of negotiations failed 
to result in an acceptable compromise. The panel planned to convene 
after a floor session Tuesday afternoon, with the potential for 
deliberations to stretch into the evening.

"Look, we have great ideas. We're trying to make sure they work the 
way we think they do," said Senate President Keith Faber, an attorney 
from Celina who chairs the panel.

The goal of proponents is to revise Ohio's constitution to prohibit 
amendments that deliver commercial economic benefits to individuals 
or monopolies. That language takes aim at 10 marijuana-growing sites 
- - including one in Lorain - described in a legalization question the 
Responsible Ohio campaign is advancing toward November's ballot.

The group was delivering more than 695,000 petition signatures to 
Secretary of State Jon Husted on Tuesday, well over the number 
necessary to make the ballot. Husted makes the final determination on 
how many are valid.

Democratic election lawyer Don McTigue told the Senate committee that 
it is "fundamentally unfair" to Ohio voters who signed those 
petitions for lawmakers to place an anti-monopoly amendment alongside 
the legalization question that could trump even a strong yes vote.

Husted says that Ohio's Constitution clearly states that the top 
vote-getter prevails when two conflicting ballot issues pass in the 
same election. But he also says the anti-monopoly measure would go 
into effect immediately after passage and ban the growing-site system 
when it takes effect 30 days later.

McTigue said such an interpretation could set up years of litigation 
over which parts of the amendments were operative when.

Ian James, executive director of Responsible Ohio, told reporters the 
campaign has raised more than $20 million and has about $16 million 
or $17 million left to spend.

"No matter what the Statehouse does, we're going to make sure that we 
give the voters the right to decide this issue," James said.

Maurice Thompson, director of the free market-backing 1851 Center for 
Constitutional Law, told the Senate panel Monday that the 
antimonopoly measure as passed last week by the House violates the 
First Amendment and could be broadly interpreted to prohibit 
virtually any citizen-initiated ballot issue from veterans' benefits 
to gay marriage to the minimum wage.

House Finance Chairman Ryan Smith and state Rep. Michael Curtin, a 
Columbus Democrat who co-sponsored the anti-monopoly resolution, 
issued a detailed memo to colleagues defending the measure as passed. 
They wrote that by targeting benefits of a "commercial economic 
nature," the measure safely avoids affecting issues of women's 
rights, voting rights, marital status, wages and unionization.

"It is not intended to prevent the use of the constitutional 
initiative for issues that have nothing to do with monopolies or 
commercial advantage for the few," the memo said.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom