>> The ballot signatures are in.

How many will count?

>> Welcome to Columbus on the Record.

This week marked the deadline for the submission of signatures to qualify questions for the November ballot.

Election officials around the state have a lot of signatures to examine.

Nearly 1 million.

First to the biggest pile.

Supporters of abortion rights submitted 42 bankers boxes filled with 710,000 signatures to get their amendment on the ballot.

That's more than the 400 13,000 valid signatures they need.

>> Those 42 boxes are filled with hope and love and dreams of freedom, of bodily autonomy, of health, of being able to say we decide what happens to us.

Not some politician.

Not some judge.

Not someone who doesn't know me, who doesn't know my kid, who doesn't know my best friend, but me.

>> Abortion-rights opponents called the number of signatures collected underwhelming.

They argue the amendment is extreme and will allow minors to get abortions or gender affirming care without parental consent.

You want to try to get double what you need.

They fell short of that.

How confident are you for the right supporters they will make the ballot?

>> I think they anticipate -- they will have a high accuracy rate.

They did work very hard at that piece of it.

It could've been, I think they would've loved it if it was support.

I would say they are fairly helpful.

>> Has a signature collecting changed over the years?

Now you can check during the course of the collection period.

Has it changed to run this campaign?

>> It depends on who is running the organization.

Back in 2015 I was working with the marijuana people.

We needed 305,000.

We submitted 695,000.

Well over double.

We didn't have enough.

We had to go back out and that 10 day period to get additional signatures.

It just depends.

Ours was 100% paid.

I think they did a mix if I'm not mistaken of paid and volunteer for this issue.

The volunteer side is if he depending on the individual.

Even the paid side, as we saw it in 2015, they were going for signatures because they were getting paid per signature.

That sometimes skews the number of bad signatures.

I think this time around on the volunteer side they did a very good job in training people.

These weren't just volunteers off the street or whatever or roaming but these were volunteers who were trained.

I would expect the percentage of valid signatures from the volunteers will be higher than it normally is.

>> The Democratic Party submitted I believe 100,000 of these signatures.

You have to guess the accuracy rate might be high but you never know.

>> You don't know for sure.

The Ohio Secretary of State needs to give the final up or down vote.

The county board of elections are going to be looking at these for things like if this person registered to vote, does this match?

address?

It's been all over the map.

You mentioned the marijuana measure was almost like a low point as far as signature accuracy in recent years, but there were some groups that got closer to over 60 or 70% accuracy rate of the signatures that they submitted.

It's so hard to tell even from history.

>> Starting to see the language if it makes the ballot in November.

The language of this campaign starts to develop.

Neither side wants to use the word abortion.

The abortion folks say reproductive rights, women's healthcare, the antiabortion rights folks say it is parental right, extreme measures.

Why don't they want to use the word?

>> I think that the abortion question is more than half of people in the state are supportive of access to abortion, but when you get into the nitty-gritty of it and speaking about late-term abortion or using a lot of discussion about pain and processes then maybe you start to lose people.

To keep it very broadly about reproductive on the pro side and on the other side they don't really want to link it to that because they know more than half of Ohio would support abortion access.

>> You have to sort of peel off from the edges.

You're going to lose your parental rights if your daughter wants to have an abortion or if your daughter wants to have gender affirming care.

Is that the only way the no side can win?

>> Yeah.

With any of these issues when you get into the nitty-gritty of them is when you get into the problems.

That's why neither side really wants to talk about what it is, but from my perspective, from life, it is two main things.

You can get abortions up until birth under that amendment and under 18 you are not notified or given consent on those abortions.

>> Right now you can get abortions up to birth the way you read the law now.

The health of the mother.

The health of the infant exception.

>> We have a heartbeat bill right now.

>> The law says you can have a late-term abortion but they don't cap it.

Except when the mother's life is in danger or the fetus is no longer viable.

>> I mean, it is allowed.

If you want to you can prove mental health.

This is what's in these amendments.

If you say mental health of the mother, which it does say, that can be for many different reasons.

Depression or whatever.

It does allow it.

You're saying doesn't occur now it doesn't mean it's going to occur in the future.

>> I think the opponents haven't really been talking about this loophole allowing late-term abortions.

I mean, conceivably it might happen on a rare occasion but the amendment is very clear that abortions up to fetal viability and only after that if indeed a doctor certifies that abortion is necessary for the health and life of the mother.

That's not an open-ended loophole.

One would expect here that in fact if somebody is going to have an abortion they would choose to have it sooner and if something happens in the late- term there is actually an exception that would allow for that situation to be covered.

That's not going to be huge numbers of people.

It's a misleading argument.

>> To get the abortion amendment passed the support of abortion rights are closely watching the August election which voters will decide issue one and opponents to issue one and they have sent out mailers to voters.

The mailers are kind of Orwellian.

As first reported, the fire gives voters information on when and how to vote but it also says important information.

Whom you vote for is private, but whether or not you vote is a matter of public record.

We will be reviewing public records following the election to determine whether or not you joined your neighbors in voting.

That's legal.

Your voting record is public record.

That's kind of creepy, don't you think?

>> It is a weird choice.

It's a choice that is kind of like your neighbors are doing it kind of checking up on you.

It's not necessarily a new tactic but it's an interesting one that they chose to go down.

Especially if you feel like you have the winning message.

>> Is weird as it is it drives turnout.

>> At the base election.

What I find interesting is people feel they have to pretty much threaten their people to get them to come out to vote.

That's the only thing I find interesting about that tactic they're using.

>> Could backfire?

>> It could.

I agree it is weird.

When I first heard about it -- [ laughter ] >> There is some research that does show it works on some people more so than others sorts of threats if you will to let people know that just the fact that you are voting and participating to build a momentum of kind of an odd kind.

>> It sounds like it's coming from the government even though it says paid for -- people get scared and vote.

>> Funny games.

The other stack of signatures that could lead to the legalization of recreational marijuana in Ohio.

Supporters of so-called adult use cannabis submitted 222,000 signatures to get there issue on the fall ballot.

That is more than the 125,000 valid signatures they need.

Jessie Balmert, they have some breathing room.

Are they confident they will have enough to get on the ballot in November?

>> I think everyone submitted a ballot initiative and are confident they will make the ballot.

So, yes, of course they are projecting confidence.

The number is not double, but if you have a really high rate of accuracy than that is not a problem.

I do think it's worth pointing out that this is an initiated statute which is different than a constitutional amendment.

Basically, if voters approve this it will become part of Ohio law and thus it's not something that could be affected by this August 8th I think there's been a lot of discussion about that and confusion.

>> You said you worked at a previous amendment?

They have no chance.

>> Yeah.

I think with this issue in itself I think you are going to be really careful because I can't tell you if you go to contest here in Columbus and you're collecting signatures for this issue you will get hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of issues of signatures.

The problem is maybe 2% of the people are registered voters.

For whatever reason, marijuana attracts a lot of people who want to sign but they don't vote and they are not registered to vote.

>> There was some speculation they weren't going have signatures.

Even the base number.

That proved they had a few thousand whether they are good or not we don't know.

>> This has been such a compensated process.

As Bob mentioned we have been through this once before.

There is a whole contingent of people who believe that we have medical marijuana here and that is as far as it should go.

I guess they made it.

At least they made it to the ballot box delivery day.

>> Assuming they make it in November that will probably stimulate a higher turnout among campuses for students who will want to support the legalization of recreational marijuana.

That's not the motivation for increasing turnout for other issues, but I think that'll happen.

We shall see.

This means, of course, that the consultants and TV stations and others have good use for them in terms of ads.

>> This is a statute and the lawmakers could reject it right after it passes.

If it passes by 55 or 60% it'll be tough if your lawmaker to go against but it could happen.

Is there any chance that between now and November that lawmakers could still strike a deal with the supporters of this initiative?

We are not going to go to the ballot we will pass a law and give the state more control.

We will write the rules.

>> I don't think so.

I think the Senate and governor have made it clear they are opposed to legalization on marijuana on this broadscale going past medical marijuana.

I just don't think there is any pallet for that.

>> Conservative states like Arkansas, Dakotas and Oklahoma recently within the past few years have rejected legal marijuana.

Ohio is not as conservative as those.

>> Right.

It shows that the negotiations on this fell short over the four months that the legislature could've acted on it.

That would be the time when you would see that the Republican super majority believed that it was politically expedient for them to do something.

They will certainly be against it and that will affect the complaint.

>> Will voters in Ohio be more like Oklahoma or more like supporters in say Kentucky or Missouri or Michigan?

>> When we did it in 2015 we lost handily but part of that was the way it was structured with a few growers and all of that.

I think it's getting more and more popular but I don't know if we are quite there yet in Ohio.

I think we are real close.

>> One of the issues is we now have this bordering states argument we had with casinos and gambling because it's like, we've got it all around us and people are having to cross borders why not have a year?

>> They say that if they when the legislature would not pass a law to repeal it.

I think they are wrong.

I think this is a legislature that says so what, we don't like it we've got the vote and we in fact will repeal it.

>> What if they win by 55 or 45?

>> I think they will say we know better, which is of course one reason why a lot of people go to the constitutional amendment process because that has greater guaranty it will last and some people said we can change this and this statute to guarantee it will be in place for four or five years before the legislature can actually undermine the will of the people.

>> You talked to lawmakers.

Is this on the table?

Do they have a plan B if this does pass?

The ones opposed?

>> Yeah.

I don't think they are quite to that point of formulating a plan B. I think this has to make the ballot and people have to make their case first.

point.

>> Ohio can legally raise and spend money for the next two years.

The arduous months long budget process came to an end this week when Governor DeWine signed the state budget into law as he has the right to do.

The wind issued 44 line item vetoes.

He rejected the budgets prohibition on city's efforts to ban flavored tobacco products.

He rejected an effort to ban colleges from mandating vaccines.

He kept tax cuts in place but vetoed some technical aspects of changes to the states income tax and business tech system.

And he vetoed a two week sales tax holiday in August.

You only have one week.

>> What happened to the month?

>> Do these seem things that he has a passion for?

>> I think the cigarette prohibition thing is something he just strongly believes in.

He just thinks that --I'm not going to argue with him -- cigarette smoking is bad.

Vaping and all that other stuff.

Anything we can do to discourage it we should.

I think that was it really just something that he believes in.

The tax holiday is interesting because you didn't veto it in the sense that we are not going to do that.

He wanted to give the control of it and everything to his department of taxation so I feel like that was more the exact kind of branch should be more of that.

There's various reasoning behind these 44 vetoes.

>> The tax cut.

$3.1 billion in tax cuts.

Not a large portion of a $90 billion two-year budget but will the state drop the revenue?

Will voters see a boost in their paychecks?

>> We will see.

It's part of a years long quest from the Republican co-General assembly to potentially even eliminate the income tax one day and it seems like every budget we drop a tax bracket or raise the lowest threshold that someone would pay the income tax.

There's only so many places to get taxes from in Ohio and income is one of them.

How much would we be relying on it.

>> This main text for businesses in Ohio.

90% of businesses won't pay that the next couple years.

How will the state be taxing businesses at all?

>> I'm perplexed a little bit by it.

I was around when that tax was invented or whatever.

They had a creative idea for what they thought was fairness by doing it that way.

So many businesses crossed how much business are you actually doing here?

Now, a lot of this is moving online in other ways and volume of their sales and there are other ways to do it but maybe they think it's antiquated.

>> Will this encourage more businesses to locate here in Ohio and do business?

>> They can claim that.

It's funny if you look at this budget and didn't know and look at the tax cuts this is a traditional pro-business and if you look at a lot of other provisions Democrats really are spending money it really is an interesting budget.

Everybody can claim something from the budget.

The question becomes what happens down the road?

>> We are flushed with cash, Bob.

>> The rainy day fund is overflowing.

That has been the big thing that I think in this budget.

This is something that has been in the works for 50 years and they finally got it.

It's going to be done now.

I can't believe.

How many federal dollars are in this budget and of course in the real world it would've been nice if somebody said, you have left over federal dollars.

The federal government has a deficit.

What you [ laughter ] send that money back?

>> They talked about that during the debt ceiling debate.

I write.

The Ohio Supreme Court will get a third crack in Ohio's can congressional maps.

Twice the state's highest court has ruled the maps unconstitutional, but lawmakers ignore the rulings and last year used an unconstitutional map anyway.

ruled the Ohio Supreme Court should look at them again.

In light of decision and an North Carolina case that said state legislatures must follow state constitutions and state court rulings when drying congressional maps.

Herb Asher, the Democrats are happy because the Supreme Court said go look at this again.

Republicans are happy because we have a new Supreme Court.

This is okay.

>> This is a major decision.

It's all independent legislature philosophy.

It's not legitimate.

That really is very significant.

They also said just because you have to consider the other actors that doesn't mean the courts are limited and they can't do things willy-nilly.

I would like the courts that made rulings to relook at their rulings and of course in the context of Ohio --we are all laughing right now --we know what will happen.

It has changed and so they will come back and say it is a wonderful map.

The key issue is that, in fact, this notion that legislatures can be all-powerful was ruled out by the Supreme Court.

>> Jesse, they had to draw fair maps.

Ohio's Constitution is more specific.

You cannot draw maps and give one party and advantage over the other.

This previous court has said that's exactly what's happened here.

Is there any chance the Supreme Court has sent a warning to Ohio Saint follow the Constitution and don't make a mess where we could be back here again?

>> It's going to be held broadly or narrowly of how the Supreme Court will interpret this.

It will look at the case and say independent state legislature theory is not really at play here.

The Ohio Constitution was approved by the voters.

This is the place to take these That's where they should have gone.

On the other hand the new chief justice was among those who dissented from the original ruling saying that the Republicans who held were not overstepping here and I imagine she still holds true to that position and so will this court issue an opposite ruling.

>> As I understood it there were two pieces to the Ohio case that they wanted the Supreme Court to decide.

The other one was did this court in some way overstep by somehow rewriting or putting rules?

I think that was left on the cutting room floor.

I think they said it's not the independent legislature theory let's go back to where we started.

>> The new Supreme Court justice is appointed by Governor DeWine after the election.

Do we know where he stands on >> No.

He never had to rule on it.

He wasn't even a judge before he became a Supreme Court justice.

We don't know.

I don't have any problem now with the Ohio Supreme Court looking at these maps.

I wish they would go in and make them more wonderful than they were the first time.

>> Democrats are in the delegation.

>> Yeah.

I've always thought compact contiguous is the most important thing.

Unfortunately for Democrats they are all concentrated in certain urban areas so when you are drawing maps they are not allowed.

>> Let's get to our final off the record parting shots.

Bob Clegg, your first.

>> On Twitter this week there was a photo posted by Frank LaRose showing a blank Federal elections commission form that was dated July 15th, 2023.

I think he's trying to send a message.

I don't know.

We will see.

>> I understand that the George Clooney documentary movie or whatever it is is moving at pace and will be out in the fall dealing with Dr. Strauss.

It will have some implications for Ohio politics.

Yes.

>> I just will take this little moment to remind people they need to register to vote by Monday for the August election which is not the same as the November election.

Voting starts on Tuesday.

>> One thing that ended up on the cutting room floor of the Ohio budget was a requirement that state employees be in the office four days a week.

We can continue working from home.

>> I want to thank Jessie and her colleague.

They did a great amount to the late Tim Siegel and did his style of how the budget affects the article and did the dispatch.

Longtime viewers of this show will know that I used it to say I did tweet for a while and then now there is a new social media platform apparently?

Mark Zuckerberg's threads?

That is off the record for this week.

Continue the conversation on Facebook.

You can see that great article by Jessie and you can watch us anytime on your time WOSU.org/COTR or on the PBS video app.

From our group and panel Emma I'm Mike Thompson.

Have a good week.