History of Initiative & Referendum in Ohio

This article was significantly based on an article published by the Initiative & Referendum Institute and is used with their permission. Some portions of this article may have been adapted from Wikipedia, and information on the page may need to be updated.

The Ohio Constitution was amended on September 3, 1912, establishing the right of Ohio residents to:

• Initiate amendments to the Ohio Constitution.
• Initiate new laws.
• Overturn laws passed by the Ohio State Legislature.
• Approve legislatively referred constitutional amendments.

From 1913, when the first initiated constitutional amendment was voted on in 1913, through 2022, Ohio voters have voted on 71 initiated amendments to their constitution, approving 20 and rejecting 51.

Between 1913 and 2014, Ohio voters also voted on 156 proposed constitutional amendments that were legislatively referred to the ballot by the Ohio State Legislature. Of these, voters approved of 106 amendments and rejected 50.

Including all 227 initiated and referred constitutional amendments voted on by Ohio citizens, 126 amendments have been approved and 101 were rejected.

History of I&R

The first steps toward I&R in Ohio begin in 1896 when the National Direct Legislation League met in St. Louis, Missouri. The league elected 56 vice presidents, four of whom were from Ohio, the largest number of the 36 states that were represented.

Reverend Herbert Bigelow

The leader who guided Ohio's initiative and referendum forces to victory was the Reverend Herbert S. Bigelow of Cincinnati's Vine Street Congregational Church. Church members who disapproved of his political work quit in droves; his salary diminished to the point that he and his wife had to take in boarders to make ends meet. When he invited the I&R advocate and Prohibitionist R. S. Thompson to speak to the congregation, the church's trustees locked the doors. Later, the trustees filed formal charges of heresy against Bigelow before a church court, but he was never tried. Eventually, Bigelow's supporters won control of the board of trustees and helped him make Vine Street a nerve center of the state's Progressive movement.

When the state senate approved an I&R amendment in 1906, Bigelow sensed that success was near and took a leave of absence from the church, with his congregation's consent, to work full time for I&R, "for a time, perhaps two or three years." In 1908, despite opposition from the Governor, "the well-known machine representative," (as Equity called him), the I&R bill passed both houses, but was killed by legislators voting secretly in a conference committee. I&R backers charged that "the Republican bosses and their tools in the state senate" were responsible.

The 1912 state constitutional convention

The Progressives finally got their I&R amendment, not through the legislature, but in a state constitutional convention, along with some 41 other amendments, which were submitted for voter approval in a special election held September 3, 1912. A contemporary account of the campaign called it “the most bitter and momentous struggle known in the state for a generation. Every ruse and trick known to Big Business politicians was employed to frighten the people of Ohio from adopting the I&R. The whole corporate power of the state backed by Wall Street money and influence was thrown into the fight. The Catholic Church stood against the people's power measures and issued printed instructions to their members, at the Sunday services, on how to vote.”

The fight for the I&R amendment and for other vitally important amendments was led by Reverend Bigelow, ably assisted by Mayor Brand Whitlock (D) of Toledo and Mayor Baker (D) of Cleveland. The I&R amendment passed in a statewide vote on September 3, 1912 with 57.5% of the vote.

First initiative in 1913

The first year an initiative appeared on the Ohio ballot was in 1913. Both initiated measures that year were defeated.

First successful initiative in 1914

Ohioans petitioned four measures onto the 1914 ballot, and one of them, Ohio Amendment 1 regarding home rule for the sale of intoxicating beverages, passed. The Women's Suffrage Amendment was not so lucky.

Voters in 1933 approved the Old Age Pension Initiative and, in 1936, overwhelmingly passed an initiative banning taxes on food. In 1949 they dealt a serious blow to political machines in the state, abolishing the voting-booth system of electing an entire party slate of candidates with the flick of a single lever. Henceforth, voters decided the merits of each candidate independently.

Rejection at the voting booth

During the next 39 years, voters rejected all but one initiative put before them. The exception was the 30-Day Voter Eligibility Initiative, a 1977 vote to repeal a law, approved only months previously by the legislature, that allowed people to register to vote at the polls on Election Day rather than requiring them to register beforehand.

Notable measures

1992 term limit initiatives

In 1992, three separate term limits initiatives were petitioned onto the ballot and approved at the ballot box: Congressional Term Limits, Gubernatorial Term Limits, and State Legislative Term Limits.

2015 marijuana initiative

The 2015 elections featured the Marijuana Legalization Initiative, Issue 3, a controversial measure to legalize marijuana for anyone over 21 years of age that made national news. The measure would have created 10 facilities that had exclusive rights to commercially grow the drug, which led state lawmakers to legislatively refer the Initiated Monopolies Amendment, Issue 2 to the ballot. Issue 2 would have invalidated Issue 3, if the marijuana initiative had passed. Issue 3 was defeated at the polls by a 64-to-36 vote.

See also

• Procedures for qualifying an initiative in Ohio
• Laws governing the initiative process in Ohio
• List of Ohio ballot measures

External links

• A History of Statewide Issue Votes in Ohio, compiled through 1954 by Arthur Schwartz
• Ohio Issues Procedures and Ballot Board
• List of Ohio initiatives from 1913-2000, PDF from the [[Initiative & Referendum Institute]
• Ohio ballot measures from 1998-present

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