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2008

Petition Drives

Petition drives/direct democracy are being used increasingly in Ohio to change the Constitution and pass or repeal laws. If you need more information to decide whether to sign a petition or to help a petition drive, check out this area. 

Issue 5 (2008) was an referendum to support a recently passed law that restricted the rates that could be charged by payday lenders in Ohio. It passed by 63.6% to 36.4% See this page for more information about other issues on the 2008 Ohio ballot.

Ohio 2012 ballot measures (Ballotpedia.org)

2023 was a important year for petition drives. In the wake of the Supreme Court's 2022 Dobbs decision, a 6-week abortion ban enacted by Ohio's Republican legislature went into effect and was stayed by a court a few weeks later. But, while in effect there was the 10-year-old rape victim who was forced to go to Indiana in order to get an abortion. Predictable callousness by Republican officials galvanized a doctor-led petition drive to enshrine protections for reproductive rights into the Ohio Constitution. This effort succeeded (despite misleading ballot language) and Issue 1 was passed by a 13 point margin in the November 2023 general election.

This success was especially notable in light of an effort by the Ohio legislature and office holders to restrict the ability of Ohioans to initiate and pass constitutional amendments through the petition process. This change to the Ohio Constitution was put forth in an August 2023 Special Election (suspicious, since they had just done away with most August elections). This effort (also Issue 1) failed.

There was also a petition drive to legalize marijuana use through statute on the 2023 November ballot as Issue 2 which passed by a wide margin.

Looking forward to 2024, a new petition drive to reform the process of drawing the dictrict maps that are used to elect representatives will begin. In 2015 and 2018, there were petition drives to place what were hoped to be the answer to gerrymandering in Ohio. Both reforms passed with votes in excess of 71%. However, the reforms were developed in conjunction with the legislature and then they chose to not even follow the rules they had helped to create as well as ignoring the Supreme Court of Ohio when they tried to enforce the Constitiution.

The 2024 effort will center around removing political actors from the process of drawing district lines entirely. The organization heading this effort is Citizens Not Politicians. Pease consider donating, volunteering, and signing the petition when you see one.

Women's Organizing Convention

The Ohio Democratic Party Women's Organizing Convention

this Saturday, January 12 - Sunday, January 13

at the New Ohio Democratic Party Headquarters

go to www.OhioDems.org for more information

AEP to Host Meeting on Transmission Line Thursday

American Electric Power will host a public information meeting from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 28, in council chambers at the UA Municipal Building, 3600 Tremont Road.

The topic is a new 6.08-mile, 138,000-volt transmission line AEP proposes to run from south of Hilliard to Cannon Drive on the Ohio State University campus. According to AEP, the precise route the line will take is yet to be determined.

Construction is scheduled to begin this fall and be complete by summer 2009.

Bill Press is Coming to Columbus-May 15, 2008

pressPopular morning progressive radio host and political insider Bill Press will be in Columbus to promote his new book Trainwreck: The End of the Conservative Revolution. WVKO 1580 AM will host a book signing and dinner party with Bill on Thursday, May 15th at 6:00 p.m. at the Florentine Restaruant, 907 West Broad Street in Columbus. Admission is $25 and includes an Italian dinner buffet.

Audacity of Hope Book Club Meeting, 1st meeting

Assignment: Read or listen to Prologue and Chapter 1 (Republicans and Democrats), Chapter 2 (Values) and Chapter 3 (Our Constitution). Login required to listen to the audio.

When: Thursday, July 10th, 2008 at 6:30pm

Where: The home of our gracious host, Barb Falkenberg, 2501 Onandaga Drive

'Audacity of Hope' Book Club Meeting, 2nd meeting

We're reading Chapters 4, 5 and 6.

Audio of the prologue and first 5 chapters are available on the UAPA web site. Registration and login required to access this audio.

The meeting will be held at the home of Pat Hadler, 2477 Southway Drive (map), Upper Arlington.

Please RSVP below so we know how many cookies to bake!

Cutting Worker Costs Key To Automakers' Survival

A good story netting out the domestic auto industry labor problem:

"The current per-hour employee cost for U.S. automakers is around 50 percent higher than the costs for their foreign counterparts. The difference, however, is not simply a matter of hourly wage. As it turns out, the real wage discrepancy mostly comes down to retiree benefits."

Unfortunately, it's hard to find any recent reporting about why Detroit can't build cars that people want to buy.

Republican tax hikes on future generations

"They always talk about how the Democrats raise taxes. But the Republicans raise debt ---- which is a deferred tax hike, really. It's a cowardly tax hike. It's a tax hike on people who can't vote and speak up against it at the time."

---- Bill Maher

Opinion: Break up the one-party rule on the Ohio Supreme Court

 
 

A 2002 poll commissioned by the League of Women Voters of Ohio Education Fund found that 83% of voters believed that campaign contributions influence the decisions of the Ohio Supreme Court.

Today, all seven Ohio Supreme Court justices are Republicans with little to check the excesses of one-party rule.

Newspaper articles and studies have pointed to a correlation between campaign contributions and the votes of members of the Ohio Supreme Court. The New York Times article “Campaign Cash Mirrors a High Court’s Rulings” noted:

"An examination of the Ohio Supreme Court by The New York Times found that its justices routinely sat on cases after receiving campaign contributions from the parties involved or from groups that filed supporting briefs. On average, they voted in favor of contributors 70 percent of the time. Justice O’Donnell voted for his contributors 91 percent of the time, the highest rate of any justice on the court."

Under Ohio’s Code of Judicial Conduct (Canon 3), judges should disqualify themselves when they cannot perform their duties “impartially and diligently.” The NYTimes investigation found that Ohio Supreme Court judges almost never disqualified themselves from hearing their contributors cases:

"In the 12 years that were studied, the justices almost never disqualified themselves from hearing their contributors’ cases. In the 215 cases with the most direct potential conflicts of interest, justices recused themselves just 9 times."

The cost of deregulation


   
   
   
   
 
   
   
   
 
 
   
 

 

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