Ohio and Majority Rule

The gerrymandered legislature tried to pull the wool over Ohio's eyes

Most Americans believe that the person or ballot initiative that gets the majority of votes should win. That’s how it’s been since elementary school when the person who got the most votes became class President.

In Ohio we saw the citizens of their state wholeheartedly agree, so I’m inviting you to join me in celebrating the Buckeye state for turning back the tide, and serving notice to those cynical pols who would deny us our rights to self-governing. As the director of  LetMajorityRule.org, I’m more than a little pleased. We’re trying to level the playing field by stopping partisan gerrymandering, reforming the Electoral College, and ending automatic Senate holds and non-speaking filibusters.

We aren’t alone, and it’s a good thing, because this is democracy’s version of a cage match. On one side, there are Republican super-majority legislatures that are determined to—by hook or by crook—impose their minority will on the rest of us. On the other side there’s LetMajorityRule.org and The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which is dedicated to modifying—without an impossible-to-achieve Constitutional amendment—the outdated Electoral College. The goal being a system where the majority rules. From Wikipedia: “The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is an agreement among a group of U.S. states and the District of Columbia to award all their electoral votes to whichever presidential ticket wins the overall popular vote in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The compact is designed to ensure that the candidate who receives the most votes nationwide is elected president, and it would come into effect only when it would guarantee that outcome.^[2][3] Introduced in 2006, as of August 2023 it has been adopted by sixteen states and the District of Columbia. These jurisdictions have 205 electoral votes, which is 38% of the Electoral College and 76% of the 270 votes needed to give the compact legal force.”

It's worth taking a look back for a moment to recognize that a big reason the Electoral College was adopted in the first place was to convince the slave states to sign onto the United States by ensuring that as smaller states, they’d have outsized power. This was a winning argument in the smaller Northern states too. Ditto the United States Senate make-up, where each state, regardless of size, gets two senators. That in itself has proved to be a great hedge against a potential tyrannical majority that might run roughshod over the smaller states, and in my judgement, remains a potent and good idea.

Certain Senate powers just stop the business of governing, like the phone-it-in filibuster, and the one-senator-hold that disrupts the “advise and consent” charter of the body. That is what’s currently responsible for holding up the 273-and-counting military appointments that require Senate confirmation. That power is currently being abused by Tommy Tuberville (R-Covered Wagon) as he objects to the military rule that pays for travel from anti-abortion states to safe-havens for women’s reproductive healthcare. Note: DoD does not pay for the procedure.

Thanks to Ohioans undeterred by a special election date set by the unstoppable Republican super-majority in their General Assembly to ensure low turnout and thus a robbery with malice and aforethought, Ohioans rallied in the August heat to turn back the decidedly undemocratic effort to change the rules regarding referenda—the process by which citizens participate in “direct democracy” by putting initiatives straight to the ballot, rather than going through the legislative process. 

It was a must-do, because the gerrymandered state assembly, a Republican put-up job, would love to stop all abortions there, substituting majority rule for the tyranny of the minority by raising the bar. They wanted to change the referendum rules to make it harder for citizens to employ direct democracy at the ballot box.

Simply put, Republican legislators gerrymandered into safe seats are afraid of voters. They change the rules where they can. In Ohio, they pretended the effort was to protect the state constitution from “outside influence,” but voters, many, many voters—Democrats, Independents, and moderate Republicans—saw through the ruse. They knew it was really a poorly disguised anti-abortion measure—and they turned out in droves.

Afraid of a result like the one obtained by Kansans, who last year voted to keep the government out their bedrooms and medical exam rooms, Ohio Republicans fear that left to the majority, abortion rights would be codified in the state constitution. Leery of the rules we’ve employed since elementary school, they wanted to impose their anti-women religious views on the rest of the state. They figured an August election was just the thing. They were wrong.

But they won’t stop, and we won’t either. I hope you’ll visit LetMajorityRule.org and the NPVIC to see what you can do to ensure a functioning democracy.

©2023 Jon Sinton