On September 29, Ohio Democrats and their allies, especially labor unions, submitted 318,460 signatures, asking for a referendum on HB 194. That is the omnibus election law bill passed by this year’s legislature. Because no one knows if there are enough valid signatures yet, the existence of the petition means that HB 194 can’t take effect yet. If the petition has at least 231,147 valid signatures, the bill is suspended until after the November 2012 election, and the public will vote on it in November 2012. Even if the petition doesn’t have enough valid signatures, the bill can’t take effect until the petition has been checked. The checking process will take at least three weeks.
HB 194 was the bill that supposedly gave Ohio a constitutional ballot access law for minor parties. The original law had been declared unconstitutional in 2006, mostly because it required the signatures for minor party qualification to be submitted in November of the year before the election. HB 194 had moved the petition deadline from four months before the primary, to three months before the primary. Now that change can’t take effect, for a while at least. All of this makes it even more likely than before that the Secretary of State will now recognize Americans Elect, the Constitution Party, the Green Party, and the Socialist Party, for the 2012 election. Because a U.S. District Court on September 7, 2011, had already enjoined the new February petition deadline, saying it was still too early, chances had already looked good that all the minor parties would be on the 2012 ballot. But now the chances are even higher, because the new statutory petition deadline reverts to November 2011, the same deadline that was already tossed out by the 6th circuit in 2006.
Richard, am I correct in assuming that this indicates that the Democratic Party is trying to kill this bill because it gives minor parties better ballot access and that due to this they perceive a possible threat from the left-leaning parties in Ohio, namely the Green and Socialist Parties?
In other words, that they are afraid of the “Nader effect”?
The reason the Ohio Democrats, and the unions, oppose HB 194, is because of its other provisions, such as those cutting back on early voting, provisional voting, and on whether counties should automatically mail absentee ballot applications to all voters or not.
In my opinion, it is always a mistake for state legislatures to pack dozens of election law changes into a single bill. But that is common in Florida, Missouri, and Ohio.
HB 194 does not really improve ballot access at all. It makes it worse, by pretending to comply with the 2006 court decision. Technically it makes it a little bit better, but realistically it is a harmful bill to minor parties.
#3 It is unknown whether it complies with the 2006 Bracewell 2-1 decision by the circuit court, which emphasized the combination of factors.
The 2008 decision in Brunner should have ruled that the SOS did not have the power to rule by executive edict, and stopped at that point. Instead it went on to rule on the substance, which was a 20-day shift. The decision scolded the legislature for not acting, and praised the SOS for her misguided and illegal effort.
The court then let the SOS enter into a consent decree, effectively letting the court to legislature.
In the recent Husted case, the court was peeved that the legislature was trying to reclaim its legislative authority (by making the legislature a party to any legal action and informed of any proposed consent decrees). It also completely ignored the combination of change in the primary date and the petition deadline, and ridicules a 70-day period as only being put in place because the secretary of state has a lot of work.
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