Among neighboring states, voters in Kentucky and Michigan have voted in favor of abortion rights, as have voters in California, Kansas, Montana, and Vermont.
California and Vermont can be explained away as liberal strongholds, and Michigan arguably classified as highly competitive. But the other three states that supported abortion rights were (and likely will be again) in Donald Trump’s corner.
Kansas gave 56% of its 2020 vote to Trump; Kentucky gave him 62% of its vote; and Montana gave Trump 57%. Although Democrats generally support a right to abortion, it turns out that a significant number of Republicans and independents obviously do too. It’s just that many of them don’t announce that fact.
Issue 2, the proposed marijuana law, is also drawing attention, much of it inside Ohio, and especially from an array of opponents who argue that legalizing adult use of marijuana would endanger public safety as well as on-the-job safety. The latter is one of the key reasons the Ohio Manufacturers’ Association opposes the marijuana measure. So does Gov. Mike DeWine and a number of other officeholders and organizations.
Accurate predictions are not necessarily the corner’s strong suit. But at this writing, and even allowing for what will be a statewide donnybrook, it’s likelier than not that Ohioans will approve Issue 1, the abortion rights amendment. There are people of good faith on both sides of the issue. But it’s very hard to argue that if Kansans and Kentuckians voted to support access to abortion, Ohioans won’t.
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Once again Ohio is preparing to go through “reapportionment,” the $5 word for carving the state into 99 Ohio House of Representatives districts and 33 state Senate districts.
The current apportionment was flagrantly drawn by Republicans to favor Republicans. And it worked. The 99-seat Ohio House has 67 Republicans to 32 Democrats, while the state Senate has 26 Republicans to seven Democrats.
That is, the GOP enjoys a two-thirds majority in the House and an 80% majority in the state Senate in an Ohio that gave a far smaller proportion of its presidential vote to Republican Donald Trump — 53% in 2020, and 51% in 2016.
That’s also the Ohio that gave Barack Obama 51% of its vote in 2012 and 50.6% in 2008. Ohio’s presidential tallies have been close. The Statehouse’s seating chart isn’t.
And in November 2024, 14 months from now, voters will very likely get the chance to approve a ballot issue to end gerrymandering — as district-rigging is known — in Ohio.
For whatever reason, Mike DeWine, who is member of the Redistricting Commission that draws districts played a background role when the current boundaries were drawn.
The question now is whether DeWine will mobilize his clout (considerable, though often understated) to help give Ohioans fair representation in a General Assembly that’s deeply out of touch with voters: Just one example: In August, by a 57% margin, they killed a plan proposed by Republican legislators to make it harder to amend the Ohio Constitution — an idea all 26 Republican state senators (100%) supported, as did 62 of 67 Republican representatives (93%).
That’s what passes for “representation” in Columbus today.
Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University. You can reach him at tsuddes@gmail.com.