Many Reasons To Vote No August 8th

Tristan and Caitlin Rader early voting at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections ahead of the August 8th Special Election.

As you may have heard, there is an unusual extra “election day” at an unusual time in Ohio on Tuesday, August 8th. There is only one item on the ballot, “Issue One,” but it is imperative you vote in this election and vote “No” on Issue One. If Issue One passes, it will forever alter how amendments to the Ohio Constitution are passed and make the process significantly less democratic. It would take away the last remedy we, the people, have to make any change without being stopped by the gerrymandered supermajority in the Ohio General Assembly.

Currently, if the people want to make a change or pass a law that the state legislature will not, we must collect hundreds of thousands of signatures from half the counties in Ohio. The proposed amendment must then meet strict language requirements to make it to the ballot. Finally, it is put up for a yes or no vote in the next statewide election. As you might expect in a democracy, if the majority of the voters vote “Yes,” the amendment is adopted. Currently, many amendments do fail, and some pass with popular support. 

This process is already extremely difficult and arduous. Issue One would needlessly make it harder to the point of near impossibility for the people of Ohio to exercise their constitutional right to amend. To begin with, it increases the number of signatures to 5% of the registered voters of every one of Ohio’s 88 counties, which includes exceptionally rural areas where this would be nearly impossible. 

The kicker is Issue One would increase the percentage needed for the amendment to pass from a simple majority to 60%. That’s right: even if, say, 58% of the state voted in favor of an amendment (by all measures, a very popular issue), the amendment would fail.

The immediate cause of the Ohio General Assembly resorting to such anti-democratic measures is the Reproductive Rights Amendment on the November ballot. However, Issue One would go far beyond and effectively shut down the peoples’ Amendment process permanently, a process that has worked just fine for 111 years. It would halt any chance for progress in the foreseeable future on all issues like raising the minimum wage, marijuana legalization, criminal justice reform, environmental issues, etc. 

I will leave you with an excerpt from Teddy Roosevelt’s speech to the 1912 Ohio Constitutional Convention in support of the very process Issue One would destroy: "But it is a false constitutionalism, a false statesmanship, to endeavor by the exercise of a perverted ingenuity to seem to give the people full power and at the same time to trick them out of it... Constitution-makers should make it clear beyond the shadow of a doubt that the people in their legislative capacity have the power to enact into law any measure they deem necessary for the betterment of social and industrial conditions. To hold the contrary view is to be false to the cause of the people, to the cause of American democracy." 

Please, join me in upholding what Teddy Roosevelt called “the absolute right of the people” and vote no on Issue 1.

Councilman Tristan Rader was elected to Lakewood City Council in 2017, re-elected in 2021, and serves citywide as Councilmember At-Large. Tristan is also the Ohio Director at Solar United Neighbors. He lives on St. Charles Ave. with his wife, Caitlin, and dog, Marcus.