UPDATE: (apologies in advance for emailing so much)
As I feared, the far right is on the move in Ohio, desperate to stop ballot initiatives that threaten their lock on power— including this year’s, to end gerrymandering.
And they’re using an old Jim Crow tactic to accomplish their goal. As I explain in the video above, it’s a tactic not all that different from old voter registration forms designed to chill pro-democracy activity, like this one:
In this case, they’re undertaking a major power grab so that a highly politicized Ohio Attorney General will now be empowered to investigate groups involved in ballot initiatives.
That is a radical change from the current system, where a bipartisan ethics commission handles such issues.
The purpose is clear: to chill democracy itself, and to keep pro-democracy and other groups (and citizens) that have played important roles in recent ballot initiative victories from participating at all.
As one witness, from one of those groups, testified yesterday: “[B]y putting up these broad, unspecific restrictions and empowering the Attorney General to enforce them in a heavy-handed way, [the bill] will put a a chilling effect on Ohio citizens participating in the democratic process.”
Exactly what they’re now pushing forward on.
And yes, the Attorney General they are empowering here is the same Ohio Attorney General who rushed to FOX news and gaslit a 10-year old rape victim (suggesting her story didn’t happen) after Dobbs, who is trying to hide the involvement of Republican Attorneys General in Jan. 6, who recently wrote Ohio college and university presidents that they risked jail time if students used work study to register voters (intimidation, again), and who was highly involved in both ballot measures last year (on the losing side both times).
Is this the guy we want investigating and enforcing ballot initiative campaigns this year and in the future?
If your answer is NO…
Please make some quick calls:
1.) Tell Ohio House Speaker Jason Stephens to STOP HB 1 --
614-466-1366 or rep93@ohiohouse.gov
2.) Tell your state rep to vote NO on HB 1 --
Find your rep: ohiohouse.gov → “Who Represents Me?”
3.) Tell Governor DeWine (and his top staff) to STOP HB 1 --
DeWine office contact sheet:
4.) SHARE this
Thank you!
Update, and Action Needed