Miller Backs Ohio Constitution Protection Amendment

State Rep. Melanie Miller (R-City of Ashland) today joined with fellow lawmakers to introduce the Ohio Constitution Protection Amendment, which seeks to better protect and uphold the Ohio Constitution.

The amendment aims to alter the process of how constitutional amendments can be proposed by initiative petitions. Currently, issues proposed by initiative petitions need to meet only a 50% voting threshold to amend the Constitution. Under this proposal, these issues would need to meet a 60% threshold.

The United States Constitution requires that federal constitutional amendments receive a supermajority vote. Moreover, 32 states do not provide for initiative petition constitutional amendments at all, and of the 18 like Ohio who do, many have enacted some form of supermajority vote requirement for passage.

“I’m very proud to stand with many of my Republican colleagues at the start of this new General Assembly to further protect our Constitution as the way our Founding Fathers intended,” Miller said.

This new version of the resolution adds a couple provisions in addition to the version that was introduced in the 134th General Assembly. First, it will eliminate the “cure period” for petitioners to have two rounds of gathering signatures. Second, it will require petition signatures from all 88 Ohio counties rather than 44. 

Today, during the filing of the amendment, over 30 members signed on as co-sponsors.