Circumventing the fever swamps for a third (and final) week, we sojourn where things are getting better. Three significant, socially beneficial, events have occurred. One was a huge win for creative workers, one was a win for local schools, and today’s article describes a win for women. All three results shore up democratic rights, help people in the here-and-now, and prepare the ground for future progress.
Author’s note: It became clear (to me, finally) that providing context and teasing out implications for three important developments would result in a tl;dr article. So I split this material into multiple parts. In Part One, I explained why the SAG-AFTRA strike was important and what it meant. Last week’s article covered recent elections where residents pushed back against a reactionary take-over of their local school boards. The series concludes this week with a deep dive into the Ohio women’s successful ballot initiative.
Women know that they are people. When can they count on the same freedoms as male-gendered persons?
Salon writer Heather Digby Parton connects the dots between the politicization of social issues—such as inclusive education and women's bodily autonomy—and threats to democracy.
[The November 7 elections showed] the failure of the right’s culture war obsessions [with abortion, book bans, and transgender kids] of the past few years. . . . The election on Tuesday featured a repudiation of Moms for Liberty school board candidates all over the country . . . . Apparently, other parents decided they didn't want these busybodies telling them how to educate or raise their kids so they ran against them and won.
Voters see that the MAGA assault on democracy is manifesting itself personally in their daily lives. The Right has shown that they are serious about using the power of the state to take away people’s rights and intrude on their personal lives.
Who decides how you shall live? Rich, powerful men (a/k/a GOP mega-donors) with patriarchal/exclusionary worldviews? Or you, yourself? Really, that is the crux of the democratic proposition. Self-government or not? If not democracy, then pick your flavor of oppression: Strong Man rule, plutocratic domination, theocracy, fascism, or totalitarianism? There are plenty of models to choose from.
American democratic institutions have decayed and the mechanisms for mobilizing electoral majorities are not in good shape. So it is encouraging to see a case where collective action (as an expression of majority preference) achieves electoral success. To wit: the November 7 election in which Ohio voters approved an amendment to establish the right to abortion in its state constitution.
Ohio women and their allies organized for over a year—attending meetings, raising money, gathering signatures, etc.—to prevent state legislators from deciding which health care measures they could legally access. Ohio women’s success at the ballot box was not a foregone conclusion. The state’s Republican officials placed many obstacles and roadblocks in their way.
Prelude
Scott Greenberger led a team of journalists investigating GOP-led efforts to thwart grass-roots initiatives guaranteeing abortion rights in state constitutions. Greenberger writes:
Roused by voters’ recent endorsement of abortion rights — even in conservative states — Republican legislators are ramping up efforts to make it tougher for citizens to change laws or amend state constitutions through ballot measures.
In Ohio, anti-abortion extremists were relentless; they were determined to prevent voters from weighing in on abortion rights. Even before the proposed constitutional amendment could be placed on the ballot, Republican officials attempted to change the rules to make the process harder. (Bear with me—this is a quite the saga.)
In January 2023, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed a bill that eliminated most August special elections due to their low turnout and high cost. However, once it became clear that abortion rights proponents intended to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot in the November election, Republicans had a change of heart. They decided to put forward their own constitutional amendment before the November election. Suddenly, Republican state legislators would spare no expense —they wagered that a typical August turn-out would help their side. So in May, they passed another bill that would allow special, special elections to be held in August.
Ohio Capital-Journal reporter Nick Evans writes:
[The Republican legislators’] plan singles out the citizen-led process for amending the state constitution and raises threshold for passage to 60%. . . .
[The legislators’] proposal itself, of course, will need to go to voters and get just 50% plus one to alter the Ohio Constitution.
A Republican win would need 50 +1% of votes. For Ohio women to win, their initiative would need 60%. What a neat trick!
According to Ohio Public Media:
Some Republican leaders have admitted the idea is to get ahead of the abortion amendment because most polling shows it would pass by more than 50% but would be harder to make it past that 60% threshold.
Someone said the quiet part out loud. Shhhhh. . . . .
Electoral success I
Surprise! Ohio’s August special election had an unprecedented voter turnout of 38%. (Typical turnout for an Ohio primary—a much bigger election—is about 22%.) The rate of voter participation was similar in rural and urban counties. The result: a strong majority of voters (57% to 43%) rejected the Republican attempt to change the rules for citizen ballot initiatives.
Reporting for the Columbus Dispatch, Lily Carey writes:
Turnout this high for an August special election represents a victory in itself, said Aaron Ockerman, spokesperson for the Ohio Association of Election Officials.
‘As elections officials, we have no vested interest in the outcome of the vote... but I see this as a huge win for our democracy, to see so many people turn out, and to see the results and the will of the people have been represented,’ he said.
A “huge win for our democracy”— so far. The losers still have aces up their sleeves.
Electoral success II
“An individual right to one’s own reproductive medical treatment.” Seems pretty basic.
The people expressed their preference to guarantee this individual right—not only to abortion but to fertility treatments, contraception, and miscarriage management—in the Ohio Constitution. The amendment passed by a large margin: 56.6% to 43.4%.
Reproductive care won’t be widely accessible in Ohio any time soon. The state’s GOP-controlled Legislature lacks interest in repealing abortion restrictions already on the books. Never mind that these laws are now unconstitutional. . . .
Expect lawsuits.
I’ll see you in court!
It’s not over.
Why do they keep trying to overturn the will of the people? Ohio voters have overruled GOP politicians twice within a few months. But GOP representatives don’t care what the majority wants; their districts are gerrymandered and their jobs are secure. Jessie Hill, a legal scholar at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, commented on the GOPs opposition to the majority’s preference for “an individual right to one’s own reproductive medical treatment”:
‘It’s such a gerrymandered legislature so they are in the habit of always getting their way, of not having to care what people think — that’s a hard habit for them to break.’
Voting rights, women’s rights, and democracy—they are all connected.
According to John Sides, a political science professor at Vanderbilt University,
‘[As we] have seen in both Kansas and Michigan, there are popular majorities that would oppose the most restrictive approach to abortion,’ . . . So, if Republicans are going to preserve their ability to restrict abortion, including with laws that appear to go beyond what the public prefers, they need to restrict direct democracy.
Because “saving babies” is the conservative cover story. The real purpose is to curtail women’s access to education, jobs, and independence. Take away the ability for a woman to control her fertility and you take away her freedom. They want the power to do that. The reactionaries’ real goals? Power and control.
Who will win? I’m betting on the women. And on democracy.
And now, your moment of . . . harmony.
Writing—and reading—about serious subjects can be fairly depressing. That’s why I’ve added a new feature at the end of each essay to lighten our mood. Here’s a story about playing piano for elephants in Thailand.
There was one elephant that would walk away if I played Schubert, but stayed for hours for Beethoven.
Related Grounded articles:
Bending Towards Normal (November 21, 2023)
What IS Working? (November 14, 2023)
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Notes:
Lily Carey, Aug. 8 voter turnout surpasses 38%, with high participation across the state
Nick Evans, Ohio Republicans launch effort to make citizen-led amendments harder to pass for voters
Scott S. Greenberger, As Abortion Measures Loom, GOP Raises New Barriers to Ballot Initiatives
Jo Ingles, DeWine said he’ll sign August elections bill, after earlier eliminating most of them
Heather Digby Parton, Media must stop overcorrecting for too much Trump exposure: The public needs a closer look at him
Kate Riga, The Fight For Abortion Access In Ohio Isn’t Over
Melissa Quinn, Ohio voters approve amendment to establish right to abortion in state constitution
Excellent article. Unfortunately, the ballot-initiative and state legislatures efforts to curtail and/or ignore those that pass is not just happening in Ohio. It is part of the Heritage Center and Cato Groups long-term plan that is sent yearly to Republican legislators. For example, in Missouri, the Right-to-Work amendment is continuously being undermined by state laws that then need to be challenged and ultimately overturned as unconstitutional. The current GOP is betting that they can outlast the voters who are against much of what these men propose to vote into law. BUT, when they picked on women's rights, I think it was a bridge too far because the majority of women living today grew up with the rights they had before Roe was overturned and are now PAYING ATTENTION (finally). Hopefully, the notorious short attention span of Americans can be overcome in the elections to come!
I'm betting on women and democracy too! I absolutely loved the elephant! you made my day!