ThisWeek Community Newspapers

Thursday, November 3, 2005

By MICHAEL J. MAURER
ThisWeek Staff Writer

Ohio voters will face five proposed amendments to the state constitution on the Nov. 8 ballot.

Issue 1 would increase the state's debt limit so the state could borrow up to $650-million to subsidize business operations, including $150-million for commercial land and $500-million for commercial operations.

Issue 1 would also renew an existing public works debt program, not yet due to expire, that pays for local roads and similar infrastructure.

Issue 2 would allow voters to vote by mail or in person, as established by their county board of elections during the 35 days preceding election day.

Issue 3 would prohibit any "entity," for 60 days before an election, from making any communication to the public that refers to any candidate for the General Assembly or statewide executive office (governor and lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, auditor and treasurer) unless the person or organization is a regulated campaign organization under Issue 3.

The amendment provides no press exemption for the 60-day prohibition on mentioning a covered candidate before election day. Attorneys in favor of the amendment have argued that federal courts would not allow the amendment to be enforced against the press; another section of the amendment has an explicit, rather than implicit, press exemption.

Candidates themselves are exempt from the amendment as far as spending their own funds without limit on their own campaigns.

Unions are also exempt from the 60-day restriction and may spend member dues, without limit, as "independent expenditures" that mention candidates. The unions' authority to make independent expenditures is in addition to the authority to establish an unlimited number of "small donor PACs," each of which is allowed to receive $50 in union dues for each union member.

The regulated campaign organizations that are allowed to influence an election for statewide office or the General Assembly are limited to candidate election committees, political parties, political action committees, multi-candidate political action committees and small donor political action committees.

These regulated organizations, in turn, may receive financial and other contributions only up to fixed amounts, ranging from a low of $50 (an individual giving to a "small donor PAC") to a high of $100,000 (from a political party to a candidate for statewide elective office, such as governor or attorney general).

These contributions, which include money "or anything of value," must be publicly reported. Campaign committees for statewide elections and for the General Assembly must report contributions at or above $1,000 electronically within one day of receipt during the 30 days before an election.

Similarly, any regulated campaign organization and any individual person who spends money or anything of value in excess of $5,000 must file a campaign finance report electronically, as provided by law.

Issues 4 and 5 would create new, constitutional commissions to substitute for duties currently handled by elected officials.

Issue 4 would create a commission to draw boundaries for state and federal legislative districts for representatives of the Congress and General Assembly. Currently, these duties are handled by the General Assembly.

The commission, along with any person in Ohio, may submit proposed state and federal legislative district boundary plans. The commission is then charged with evaluating each plan for its "competitiveness number," intended to indicate the number of districts in the plan that are most competitive between the two major political parties.

The commission is required to adopt the plan with the highest competitiveness number, except that it may adopt a plan that has a lower competitiveness score by either two points (for U.S. congressional districts) or four points (for General Assembly districts) to adjust for "communities of interest" based on geography, race or economics.

The five-member commission would not be elected, but would be created by identifying the longest-serving appellate judge in the state from the Democrat party and the longest-serving appellate judge from the Republican party, who each would then pick a commission member from their own party.

These two commission members would then choose the remaining three members from among a pool of applicants, who would have to follow a lengthy series of requirements intended to reduce conflicts of interest. For example, the applicants may not, for six years, have worked as consultants for political parties.

Issue 5 would take away elections supervision from the elected secretary of state and give the duties to a nine-member commission dominated by representatives of the two major political parties, with four members each. The ninth member would be appointed by the Ohio Supreme Court.

Although the amendment would not formally repeal those provisions of the Ohio Constitution creating the office of the secretary of state and the Ohio Ballot Board, it would take away all elections duties of the secretary of state, and "all duties of the Ohio Ballot board."

The amendment would also give the nine-member commission supervisory authority over county boards of elections, allowing them to remove county elections officials and also to establish uniform, "best practice" procedures in the counties.

The amendment requires that, among the eight commission members appointed by the political parties, the commission consist of an equal numbers of men and women. It also requires that the governor and General Assembly, in making commission appointments, "take into consideration" Ohio's "geographic regions and racial diversity."

After an initial phasing-in period, commission members would serve for nine years.