OH: The next battleground for abortion rights
Last week, the Ohio Ballot Board certified the petition language submitted by Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom and Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights, which proposes enshrining abortion rights in the states constitution. That step allows organizers to start collecting signatures for their effort to get on the ballot this November. More than 400,000 signatures have to be submitted by July, but organizers are aiming to gather more than 700,000. They plan to host a statewide kickoff next week.
There are lessons to be learned from other states that underwent similar efforts last year. That includes Kansas and Kentucky, in which voters turned down proposed amendments that would have explicitly stated there are no protections for abortion rights in the states constitutions. Ohios effort is most similar to Michigan, which passed a ballot initiative in November to proactively codify abortion rights in the constitution there.
Lauren Beene, the executive director of Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights, said her organization has already been communicating with activists in states that had ballot initiatives in 2022. She added that she hoped Ohio could be a stepping stone for similar measures next year. We know that a number of states are likely going to do this in 2024, so were hoping that we can just continue to build this experience that other people can then take to the 2024 ballot, she told Score.
Organizers for the proposed constitutional amendment say they are optimistic, even though there will not be a top-of-ballot contest to boost turnout, should it qualify for November. They point to Kansas, where the abortion measure was on the August primary ballot. That had high turnout despite there being no competitive top-of-the-ticket statewide primaries in the state.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/weekly-score/2023/03/20/the-next-battleground-for-abortion-rights-00087798