On August 11, the Ohio Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the abortion initiative should remain on the November 7, 2023 ballot. Giroux v Committee Representing the Petitioners, 2023-Oh-2786. Here is the opinion.

Ohio election law says that an initiative petition is supposed to list statutes that would be repealed if the initiative were to pass. The challengers to the abortion petition said the initiative should be removed from the ballot because the petitions didn’t list the laws that would be repealed if the amendment were to pass.

The Court found that statute doesn’t directly apply to most constitutional initiatives. Technically when a constitution is amended, the amendment itself does not repeal any prior statute. Both federal and state courts often determine that statutes are unconstitutional, but a judgment that a statute is unconstitutional does not repeal that law; it just means that the law is void.

On August 4, the Eleventh Circuit stayed an order of a U.S. District Court that would have required Miami to use a different redistricting plan for City Commission. The U.S. District Court had determined that the city’s redistricting plan is a racial gerrymander, but then the Eleventh circuit said the U.S. District Court should not have ruled so close to the upcoming election.

On August 6, the plaintiffs in the case had asked Justice Clarence Thomas to countermand the Eleventh Circuit.

On August 10, Justice Thomas asked the city to respond no later than August 14. The case in the U.S. Supreme Court is Grace v City of Miami, 23A116. Here is the brief filed in the U.S. Supreme Court by the plaintiffs.

Justice Thomas is handling this because he is the U.S. Supreme Court Justice who handles emergency requests from the Eleventh Circuit, when the U.S. Supreme Court is not in session.