U.S. SUPREME COURT HELPS INITIATIVE PROCESS FOR FIRST TIME SINCE 2015
On April 22, the U.S. Supreme Court ended its stay in Brown v Yost, 24A970, and thereby helped initiative proponents in Ohio. This is the first action the U.S. Supreme Court has taken to help an initiative get on the ballot, or to take effect, since 2015.
The case involved Ohio procedures for initiative proponents to get permission to circulate their petitions. Proponents write their own description of what their initiative does. This goes on the petition form.
In Ohio, uniquely, proponents must get the Attorney General’s approval of their description. A group that wanted to circulate a petition concerning wrongful criminal convictions submitted its description seven times, and each time the Attorney General rejected it, sometimes for the most picayune reason. Once he rejected it because of a missing space between two words. Many times, he only submitted one objection, and then when they tried again, he chose another “flaw” that had been in the earlier versions. In other words, he wouldn’t combine all his objections.