Ohio Right to Sue Government Actors and Eliminate Immunity Defenses for Constitutional Violations Initiative (2026)

Ohio Right to Sue Government Actors and Eliminate Immunity Defenses for Constitutional Violations Initiative
Election date November 3, 2026
Topic Civil trials and Constitutional rights
Status Cleared for signature gathering
Type Initiated constitutional amendment	Origin Citizens

The Ohio Right to Sue Government Actors and Eliminate Immunity Defenses for Constitutional Violations Initiative may appear on the ballot in Ohio as an initiated constitutional amendment on November 3, 2026.

The ballot initiative would add a new section, Section 23, to the Ohio Constitution's Bill of Rights, which would:

• allow persons to bring civil lawsuits against the state, political subdivisions, public employees, or independent contractors acting on their behalf for alleged violations of constitutional rights under the Ohio Constitution;

• prohibit government actors from claiming legal immunities or defenses "which are only available to government actors," such as qualified immunity, sovereign immunity, and prosecutorial immunity;

• allow the person bringing the lawsuit to select a bench trial or jury trial;

• provide that if a government actor is found liable for violating constitutional rights, the person may receive damages, attorney’s fees, other legal remedies, and require the court to order measures to prevent future violations; and

• provide that a liability finding against a public employee constitutes just cause for termination of employment, agreements, or contracts; and

• establish a six-year statute of limitations for filing claims under Section 23.

Text of measure

Constitutional changes

See also: Article I, Ohio Constitution

The ballot measure would add a Section 23 to Article I of the Ohio Constitution. The following underlined text would be added:

Note: Hover over the text and scroll to see the full text.

Section 23. Protecting Ohioans’ Constitutional Rights.

(A) Definitions

(1) “State” means the State of Ohio, including, but not limited to, the offices of all elected state officers and all departments and other instrumentalities of the State of Ohio.

(2) “Political subdivision” means any body corporate or politic responsible for governmental activities within a geographic subsection of the State, including but not limited to a municipal corporation, township, county, or school district.

(3) “Public employee” means:

(a) any individual who is an officer, agent, employee, or servant, of the State or a political subdivision, whether or not compensated or full time or part-time, who is authorized to act and is acting within the scope of the officer’s, agent’s, employee’s, or servant’s employment by the State or political subdivision; or

(b) any individual or business entity that is an independent contractor of the State or a political subdivision who is authorized to act and is acting under the color of law.

(4) “Government actor” means the State, any political subdivision thereof, or any public employee of the State or of any political subdivision thereof.

(5) “Person” means any individual resident of Ohio or individual within the State.

(6) “Constitutional right” means any right, privilege or immunity secured pursuant to the constitution of Ohio.

(7) “Business entity” means an entity with employees that is a corporation, association, firm, limited liability company, partnership, sole proprietorship, or other entity engaged in business.

(B) Claim for Deprivation of Rights Guaranteed by the Constitution of Ohio

(1) No government actor shall cause any person to be subjected to deprivation of any constitutional right.

(2) A person who claims to have suffered a deprivation of any constitutional right due to acts or omissions of any government actor or actors may bring a civil action against said government actor or actors.

(3) Ohio’s Courts of Common Pleas have subject matter jurisdiction over the civil action created by this Section.

(4) Venue over the civil action created by this Section shall be determined by Ohio’s venue laws and rules that are applicable to civil actions.

(C) Immunity Defenses Prohibited

(1) In any action pursuant to this Section, no government actor shall enjoy or may rely upon any immunities or defenses which are only available to government actors or any subset thereof, including but not limited to:

(a) Qualified immunity;

(b) Sovereign immunity;

(c) Prosecutorial immunity; or

(d) Any immunity provided to the State, political subdivisions, or public employees by statute.

(D) Determination Of Liability

(1) The person bringing an action pursuant to this Section may elect whether the action will be tried in a bench trial or jury trial.

(a) In a bench trial, the court’s decision on any claim brought hereunder shall be supported by findings of facts and conclusions of law.

(b) In a jury trial, any party may submit interrogatories to the jury asking for its findings of fact and application of the court’s instructions as to the law.

(2) Any government actor is liable for the deprivation of a person’s constitutional rights if it is proven by a preponderance of evidence that the government actor’s acts or omissions caused the person to be deprived of any constitutional right.

(3) In addition, if a public employee is found liable for the deprivation of a person’s constitutional rights pursuant to subsection (D)(2), and it is proven by a preponderance of evidence that the public employee was acting on behalf of, under color of, or within the course or scope of authority granted by the State or political subdivision, then the State or political subdivision shall be held liable to that person for the conduct of the public employee.

(4) Terminating a public employee shall not affect the liability of the State or political subdivision for the terminated public employee’s conduct.

(E) Remedies Upon A Determination Of Liability

(1) If a government actor is found liable for the deprivation of a person’s constitutional rights, that person shall be entitled to any or all of the following relief:

(a) Compensation for economic and non-economic damages, without limitation;

(b) Equitable or injunctive relief;

(c) Recovery of reasonable attorney’s fees, regardless of whether the attorney provided services on an hourly, contingent, or pro bono basis; and

(d) Any other remedies prescribed by State or federal law or available pursuant to common law.

(2) In addition to the relief awarded to the person, the court shall order any government actor found liable for the deprivation of a person’s constitutional rights to take reasonable measures to prevent a similar rights violation from re-occurring.

(F) Statute of Limitations

(1) A claim made under this Section shall be commenced no later than six years from the date that the deprivation of a constitutional right is alleged to have occurred.

(G) Termination of Contract, Agreement, or Employment

(1) A finding of liability against a public employee pursuant to this Section is just cause for termination of the employment, agreement, or contract giving rise to the public employee’s status as a public employee.

(H) Severability Clause

(1) All provisions of this section shall be self-executing and severable.

Support

Arguments

• Jenny Rowe, co-founder of the Coalition to End Qualified Immunity: "Qualified immunity allows tyranny to flourish and we see proof of this every day in the news. How can we make the world take serious our agenda to make America great again when citizens are being murdered daily without justice?"

Opposition

Arguments

• Jay McDonald, president of the Ohio Fraternal Order of Police: "Police officers are held accountable internally. They can be fired. They can be suspended. They can be held accountable through criminal charges which we have seen in Franklin County and they can be held accountable in civil court. So I think eliminating qualified immunity is a solution in search of a problem."

Path to the ballot

Process in Ohio

See also: Laws governing the initiative process in Ohio

An initiated constitutional amendment is a citizen-initiated ballot measure that amends a state's constitution. Eighteen (18) states allow citizens to initiate constitutional amendments.

In Ohio, the number of signatures required for an initiated constitutional amendment is equal to 10% of the votes cast in the last gubernatorial election. A simple majority vote is required for voter approval.

Ohio also requires initiative sponsors to submit 1,000 signatures with the initial petition application. Ohio has a signature distribution requirement, which requires that signatures be gathered from at least 44 of Ohio's 88 counties. Petitioners must gather signatures equal to a minimum of half the total required percentage of the gubernatorial vote in each of the 44 counties. Petitions are allowed to circulate for an indefinite period of time. Signatures are due 125 days prior to the general election that proponents want the initiative on. The requirements to get an initiated constitutional amendment certified for the 2025 ballot:

• Signatures: 413,488 valid signatures were required.
• Deadline: The deadline to submit the signatures was July 2, 2025.

Stages of this ballot initiative

The following is the timeline of the initiative:

• February 27, 2023: Marcella Bailey, Cynthia Brown, Hamza Khabir, and Jenny Sue Rowe filed the first version of the ballot initiative. On March 8, 2023, Attorney General Dave Yost (R) rejected the petition, saying, "During our review of the summary, we identified omissions and misstatements that, as a whole, would mislead a potential signer as to the actual scope and effect of the proposed amendment."

• May 24, 2023: Marcella Bailey, Cynthia Brown, Carlos Buford, Hamza Khabir, and Jenny Sue Rowe filed a second version of the ballot initiative. On June 2, 2023, Yost rejected the petition, saying that, among other reasons, "The summary’s failure to fairly and truthfully set forth the actual scope of this abrogation is a fatal, material misstatement of the proposed amendment."

• August 9, 2023: Marcella Bailey, Cynthia Brown, Carlos Buford, Hamza Khabir, and Jenny Sue Rowe filed a third version of the ballot initiative. On August 18, 2023, Yost rejected the petition, saying that, among other reasons, " ... the summary is not a 'short, concise summing up' of the proposed amendment, it is a partial, regrouped version of the proposed amendment... In other words, potential signers could easily misbelieve that in reading the summary they actually read the proposed amendment when in fact they did not. This dangerously frustrates the entire purpose of the summary."

• November 8, 2023: Cynthia Brown, Carlos Buford, Derrick Jamison, Hamza Khabir, and Jenny Sue Rowe filed a fourth version of the ballot initiative. On November 17, 2023, Yost rejected the petition, saying, "The above instances are just a few examples of the summary’s omissions and misstatements. It is significant to ask voters to make factual findings at the ballot box. A summary that fails to inform a signer of the existence of such findings does not fairly and truthfully reflect the amendment’s import."

• March 5, 2024: Cynthia Brown, Carlos Buford, Derrick Jamison, Hamza Khabir, and Jenny Sue Rowe filed a fifth version of the ballot initiative. On March 14, 2024, Yost rejected the petition, saying, "I understand that I have rejected the Petitioners’ summaries on multiple previous occasions. Sometimes the language of the proposed amendment has changed and the summaries have failed the fair and truthful test, which I have always explained in detail. Regrettably, the Petitioners have submitted summaries that repeat the misstatements and/or omissions that I have specifically identified in previously rejected summaries."

• July 5, 2024: Cynthia Brown, Carlos Buford, and Jenny Sue Rowe filed a sixth version of the ballot initiative without a petition title. On July 15, 2024, Yost rejected the petition, saying, "I can only assume that your decision to resubmit your petition for constitutional amendment without a title at all is to avoid having to be held to a title that is fair and truthful to Ohio’s electors. Nonetheless, Ohio law does not permit you to circumvent the fair and truthful process by simply failing to submit a title."

• November 25, 2024: Attorney General Yost certified the petition filed on July 5, 2024, after the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that he could not reject a ballot initiative based on the petition title. He said, "The fact that the recent decision of the Supreme Court of Ohio in State ex rel. Dudley v. Yost, 2024-Ohio-5166 concludes the relevant statute does not grant me authority to review a title, and therefore, by extension, the lack of a title, does not change my determination that the summary is misleading. I stand by my position that the title of a proposed constitutional amendment is an indispensable piece to determining whether the summary of it is fair and truthful."

• April 22, 2025: Attorney General Yost advanced the petition filed on March 5, 2024, to the Ohio Ballot Board after the U.S. Supreme Court declined on April 22, 2025, to stay a district court order requiring him to do so. Read more about this case, Brown v. Yost, below.

• April 29, 2025: The Ohio Ballot Board unanimously approved the ballot initiative as complying with the single-subject rule, thus allowing the campaign to begin collecting signatures.

Brown v. Yost

Brown v. Yost

Stay rejected on April 22, 2025

Court Information
Issue	Does the state law requiring the Ohio Attorney General to determine whether petition summaries for citizen-initiated constitutional amendments are fair and truthful before those petitions can advance violate the First Amendment’s free speech protections?
Court	Supreme Court of the United States
Lower Court	United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio
Ruling
Ruling	The U.S. District Court for Southern Ohio ruled that the fair and truthful requirement is a content-based restriction on speech because it grants the state editorial control over part of the plaintiffs’ speech without a compelling state interest, violating the First Amendment. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals (2-1 ruling) and the U.S. Supreme Court (6-3 ruling) denied requests to stay the district court’s ruling.
Order(s)	Order: Supreme Court of the United States (April 22, 2025) Order: United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (April 9, 2025) Order: United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio (March 14, 2025)
Participants
Plaintiff(s)	Cynthia Brown, Carlos Buford, and Jenny Sue Rowe
Defendant(s)	Ohio Attorney General David Yost (R)

Summary

On April 22, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost's (R) request for a stay on a federal district court's requiring him to advance the proposed citizen-initiated constitutional amendment. Earlier, on March 14, 2025, U.S. District Court Judge James Graham ruled that O.R.C. § 3519.01(A) violated the First Amendment. The plaintiffs in the case were Cynthia Brown, Carlos Buford, and Jenny Sue Rowe—three sponsors of the proposed ballot initiative.

Yost proceeded to approve the petition on April 22 and said, "The attorney general’s office will work closely with the General Assembly on legislation to reform the ballot initiative summary process to protect the integrity of Ohio’s elections and freedom of speech." He also said he would seek to have his office's appeal dismissed.

Ohio Revised Code § 3519.01(A) requires the Ohio Attorney General to determine whether submitted petition summaries are fair and truthful statements of the proposed law before advancing the petition to the Ohio Ballot Board.

Judge Graham wrote, "[The] fair-and-truthful review requirement might appear at first glance to be a neutral regulation of election mechanics – a step that anyone attempting to amend the constitution must complete, irrespective of the person or purpose behind the amendment. But further examination raises a red flag." He stated the law "subjects one component of plaintiffs’ speech... to the state’s editorial review." He described the fair and truthful requirement as a content-based regulation, rather than a content-neutral rule, such as a signature threshold. He said there were no standards to guide or restrain "the Attorney General’s consideration of what is fair or truthful," "[he] made subjective evaluations of what was fair and truthful," and "[a]s even defendant acknowledges... the state 'effectively controls the message because the Attorney General has final approval authority.'" Judge Graham also held that the law was not "justified by a compelling state interest" nor "narrowly tailored in pursuit of that interest."

Attorney General Yost requested that the order be stayed pending appeal, and the district court granted this request. He appealed the ruling to the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which rejected the request, and then to the U.S. Supreme Court. Yost, in his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, argued that the court should take up the case because "the courts of appeals ‘diverge in fundamental respects’" on "what First Amendment standard, if any, governs laws regulating state initiative processes... On such an important constitutional issue, that level of variation is unacceptable." He also stated, "The plaintiffs say that Ohio’s process for ballot-initiative summaries violates their First Amendment rights. That argument fails because laws that regulate the initiative process itself (as opposed to laws that regulate supporters’ speech about initiatives) do not implicate the First Amendment. ... But the First Amendment confers no positive 'right to use governmental mechanics to convey a message.' Nor does the First Amendment promise that States will even have an initiative process. For those States that do, the Constitution affords them 'considerable leeway to protect the integrity and reliability of the initiative process, as they have with respect to election processes generally."

• U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals: On April 9, the three-judge circuit court panel rejected the request. Judge Karen Moore delivered the opinion, with Judge Andre Mathis concurring. Judge John K. Bush dissented. Moore wrote, "Eight times over, 'on grounds increasingly dubious,' the Attorney General rejected the summary as not fair and truthful. ... This is the very definition of editorial control." Judge Bush, dissenting, said, "When the people of Ohio choose to avail themselves of that power, they do not act in a private capacity; they act like a legislature, as the sovereign’s lawmaking body... The First Amendment poses no barrier to the Ohio Attorney General’s involvement in the certification process. That is because the First Amendment has little to say about the power of a state government to structure the exercise of its legislative power and, in particular, to establish and regulate a fundamental aspect of that power—its state constitutional amendment process."

• U.S. Supreme Court: On April 10, 2025, Justice Brett Kavanaugh stayed the district court's order pending further court action. On April 22, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the request. The order stated that Justices Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito would have granted the request.

On April 22, Yost certified the initiative petition and described the ruling as holding that "Ohio’s nearly century-old ballot initiative process was unconstitutional."

Amicus curiae briefs

The following is a list of amicus curiae briefs filed in the case Brown v. Yost before the U.S. Supreme Court as of April 25, 2025:

• Excerpt from Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections (RITE):"Although 'the First Amendment protects political speech incident to an initiative campaign, it does not protect the right to make law, by initiative or otherwise.' Neither does anything else in the Constitution. 'It is instead up to the people of each State, acting in their sovereign capacity, to decide whether and how to permit legislation by popular action.' When States permit direct initiatives, they empower their citizens to make law. And the First Amendment does not bear on the lawmaking process—that amendment 'confers' no 'right to use government mechanics to convey a message.'"

• Excerpt from Separation of Powers Clinic: "The Sixth and Ninth Circuits in particular have adopted frameworks that subject even 'the most typical sort of neutral regulations on ballot access' to First Amendment scrutiny, typically strict scrutiny. As Chief Justice Roberts has explained, states have a 'sovereign interest in the enforcement of initiative requirements that are likely consistent with the First Amendment.' Accordingly, precedent in the Sixth and Ninth Circuits results in federal courts interfering with core state sovereignty by forcing district judges to superintend the minutiae of state ballot requirements."

• Excerpt from State of Idaho: "As [Judge Patrick Bumatay] demonstrates—surveying Founding-era state constitutional amendment procedures through 20th-century ballot initiatives and referenda—the history of direct democracy in the United States establishes that neutral procedures governing which issues will appear before voters—and which won’t—have always been a state function and generally outside the scope of the First Amendment. ... Granting Ohio’s stay application would enable the Court to head off this 'threat [to a] wide array of state procedures” before it can do more damage than it has. The Court should make clear to lower courts that the First Amendment is not implicated by neutral procedural laws governing direct democracy petitions."

See also

2026 ballot measures

View other measures certified for the 2026 ballot across the U.S. and in Ohio.

• 2026 ballot measures
• Ohio 2026 ballot measures
• Ohio elections, 2026

Ohio ballot measures

Explore Ohio's ballot measure history, including citizen-initiated ballot measures.

• List of Ohio ballot measures
• Ohio Historical Ballot Measures Factbook
• Constitutional rights ballot measures
• Ohio State Legislature

Initiative process

Understand how measures are placed on the ballot and the rules that apply.

• Laws governing the initiative process in Ohio
• Initiated constitutional amendment
• Ohio Constitution
• Amending state constitutions

External links

• Initiative Text

Footnotes

2026 ballot measures

State ballot measures

States:  • Alabama • Alaska • Arizona • Arkansas • California • Florida • Georgia • Hawaii • Idaho • Indiana • Kansas • Louisiana • Maryland • Massachusetts • Michigan • Missouri • Nebraska • Nevada • New Mexico • North Carolina • North Dakota • Oklahoma • South Dakota • Tennessee • Utah • Vermont • Wyoming

Topics: Abortion policy •  Age limits for officials •  Agriculture policy •  Bail policy •  Ballot measure process •  Ballot measure supermajority requirements •  Bond issues •  Budget stabilization funds •  Campaign finance •  Citizenship voting requirements •  Civil service •  Collective bargaining •  Constitutional rights •  Crime victims' rights •  Criminal sentencing •  Criminal trials •  Drug crime policy •  English language policy •  Firearms policy •  Flood infrastructure and management •  Food and beverage taxes •  Forestry and timber •  Healthcare governance •  Homestead tax exemptions •  Immigration policy •  Initiative and referendum process •  LGBTQ issues •  Labor disputes and strikes •  Local government finance and taxes •  Local government officials and elections •  Local government organization •  Marijuana laws •  Minimum wage laws •  Parks, land, and natural area conservation •  Pollution, waste, and recycling policy •  Property tax exemptions •  Property taxes •  Psychedelic substances laws •  Public assistance programs •  Public economic investment policy •  Public education governance •  Public employee retirement funds •  Public health insurance •  Public school teachers and staff •  Recall process •  Restricted-use funds •  Salaries of government officials •  Sales taxes •  Sewage and stormwater •  Sex and gender issues •  State constitutional conventions •  State executive branch structure •  State executive powers and duties •  State judicial selection •  State judiciary oversight •  State legislative authority •  State legislative processes and sessions •  State legislative term limits •  Storm infrastructure •  Transportation taxes and fees •  Vehicle and driver regulations •  Voter ID policy •  Water irrigation policy

Local ballot measures

Ballotpedia is not yet tracking local ballot measures for 2026.

Overviews

 • Scorecard •Tuesday Count •Deadlines •Filed ballot initiatives •Potential ballot measures •Polls •Campaign finance •Signature costs •Readability