COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Nov. 7 ballot may be a progressive’s dream ticket, assuming proposals to enshrine abortion rights and legalize recreational marijuana for adult use qualify for the ballot.
Some supporters will turn out to vote for one issue, whether that be abortion rights or marijuana, but will also vote for the other.
The abortion rights constitutional amendment proposal would allow individuals to make their own decisions over reproductive rights, including birth control, fertility treatment, miscarriage care and abortion, generally up to viability. This would wrest control away from Republicans in the legislature and return it to women, backers of the amendment say.
Under the marijuana initiated statute proposal, people 21 and older would be able to possess it for recreational purposes, as well as grow up to six cannabis plants in their primary residence. The drug would be subject to a 10% sales tax, on top of state and local sales taxes, with the revenue to be sent to local governments hosting marijuana businesses, as well as to be used on drug policy reform and research.
Right now, state and local election officials are reviewing hundreds of thousands of signed petitions to determine whether each proposal will qualify for the ballot. The campaigns will know if they qualify by July 25.
Thanks to direct democracy at the ballot box, November could provide a unique opportunity for progressive voters to voice support for positions that matter to them, after over a decade of losing statewide races for public office – from the governor to the legislature – and being largely ignored on public policy – ranging from social and firearms to tax issues.
“In a state where there’s such unrestricted, unchecked power from politicians who are pretty corrupt, it is a direct vehicle to have their voices heard,” said Molly Shack, co-executive director of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, a group that’s focused on social, racial and economic justice. “Thousands and thousands of people in Ohio who want abortion access to be protected and who want marijuana to be legal are going to be talking to their friends and family about it. When people get activated, it brings people off of the sidelines, into it. And I think both of these issues will absolutely do that.”
Polling shows abortion rights and recreational marijuana have support among people on the left side of the ideological spectrum, although some conservatives are expected to vote for each issue as well.
Read more: Coverage of Ohio abortion rights
A Baldwin Wallace University poll in October 2022 found 59.1% of Ohio registered voters, including 84.2% of Democrats and 35.4% of Republicans, would support a constitutional amendment to make abortion a fundamental right in the state. This was posed as a hypothetical question since Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights wasn’t officially organized at the time and the ballot language hadn’t yet been released.
A September 2022 Spectrum News/Siena College poll of likely Ohio voters found that 79% of Democrats and 40% of Republicans supported marijuana for recreational use.
Abortion rights campaign officials said Wednesday that they anticipated the campaign leading up to Nov. 7 will cost approximately $35 million. That spending will be used on broadcast and digital advertising, mailers and phone calls.
The Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol hasn’t publicly announced a figure that it plans to spend to promote the initiated statute proposal.
“I don’t know if an issue like regulation of marijuana is turnout-driven in the same way it may have been 10 years ago,” said Tom Haren, an attorney working with the campaign. “We expect that our measure will pass a wide margin of victory, irrespective of whether the reproductive rights amendment’s on the ballot.”
The campaign is backed by medical marijuana businesses. Baldwin Wallace University political science professor Thomas Sutton expects the campaign to be well-funded, even if there haven’t been as many campaigners out with clipboards, collecting signatures.
“My hunch is they’re waiting to see if they’ll actually get the signatures in,” Sutton said. “I think it’s quite probable that while they’re late out of the gate, given the industry we’re talking about, there will be a fair amount of advertising and public awareness campaigning to get people to support that initiative.”
No president or governor candidates will be on the ballot in November. Normally this election would just have local candidates. But this year, abortion rights and marijuana could drive up turnout, he said.
“So we may be looking at maybe a 35-40% turnout as opposed to 15-20%, which is what we often see when it comes to local elections,” Sutton said.
The reproductive rights proposal faces a well-funded opposition campaign made up of Christian public policy groups and anti-abortion activists. In many ways, this group is helping spread the message about Nov. 7, even if each side is debating the details of what the amendment would allow.
Recreational marijuana will face an opposition campaign, though it will be much smaller. The Center for Christian Virtue, a conservative public policy organization, plans to mount the opposition to marijuana, in addition to working to oppose abortion and garner “yes,” votes on Issue 1, the Aug. 8 proposal to make it harder to amend the Ohio constitution, which was designed to thwart abortion rights.
Marijuana is already legal in Ohio for medical purposes, and the Nov. 7 proposal moves the needle on marijuana policy, said University of Cincinnati political professor David Niven, who worked for former Ohio Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland.
Opponents will be more passionate and motivated to rally against the abortion rights proposal, since that would be a more dramatic policy shift, he said. Marijuana could fly under the radar in the coming months and nevertheless win at the ballot box, thanks to the big spending expected to support and oppose the abortion amendment.
“I do think that there’s the capacity for the marijuana campaign to be fairy passive,” he said. “They’re not going to be able to drive turnout. They’re going to be the undercard if they make the ballot. To a certain extent it’s hard to spend money usefully in a low-turnout campaign when you’re not the top draw on the ballot. They might well benefit by nobody paying attention.”
Aaron Baer, the president of the conservative Center for Christian Virtue, says November’s ballot will put the progressive agenda on full display.
“The ACLU is trying to turn Ohio into California and Columbus into San Francisco,” he said. “All you need to do is look at what’s happening in those (liberal) states. That’s why businesses are fleeing and families are fleeing those states and those cities, and understand how disastrous this is for Ohio.”
Laura Hancock covers state government and politics for The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com.
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