The year 2021 represents the third consecutive year in which Ohio voters were not presented an opportunity to vote on any proposed amendments to the Ohio Constitution.
In the first two decades of the 21st century, Ohio voters approved 18 of 31 proposed amendments to the Ohio Constitution. Of the 31, 16 were proposed by the state’s constitutional initiative, but voters approved only 5 of them and rejected 11. Of the 15 amendments proposed by the General Assembly during this period, the voters approved 13 and rejected 2. Thus, the historic experience of Ohio voters being far more likely to approve amendments proposed by the General Assembly than by the initiative has continued. Statistical tables summarizing the historic pattern of approvals and disapprovals of state constitutional amendments are on the Ohio Constitutional Law and History Webpage
The 5 constitutional amendments proposed by initiative and approved by the voters in the 21st century added provisions to the Ohio Constitution:
• To bar same-sex marriage (2004) (Art. XV, sec. 111)
• To require increases in the state minimum wage
(2006) (Art. II, sec. 34a)
• To permit casino gambling in four locations around
the state (2009) (Art. XV, sec. 6(C))
• To grant a freedom to choose healthcare (2011) (Art.
I, sec. 21)
• To amend the constitutional provision known as
“Marsy’s Law,” which protects the rights of crime
victims (2017) (Art. I. sec. 10a)
In the three years since 2018, there have not been any proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot, thus making this the longest period since the 1912 adoption of the initiative in which the voters have not been presented with any amendments proposed by either the General Assembly or the initiative.
Despite the absence of proposed initiated amendments on the ballot, there have been multiple efforts to place proposed amendments on the ballot. The website of the Ohio Attorney General, which lists amendments proposed by initiative, reports that since the beginning of 2007, a period of almost 15 years, 48 petitions were submitted to the Attorney General with the text of the proposed amendment and a summary of the proposed amendment. If the Attorney General determines that the summary is a “fair and truthful” statement of the proposed amendment, Attorney General forwards the petition to the Ohio Ballot Board for a determination of whether the petition contains only one proposed amendment. Only then may petitioners begin collecting signatures, which they must submit to the Secretary of State.
