Initiatives, which are which our voters supplied ordinances to have a sixty percent threshold
instead of fifty. And it's probably driven by the fact that Planned Parenthood is
putting out tens of millions of dollars to get abortion on demand passed in the
state of Ohio. And there are some demagogues who on the left hand or
the right to talk about, well, this is a citizen proposal that people
like Scott Sloan will be sitting around somewhere in a Mason backyard speaking to his
neighbors and say, you know what, we had to pass a new ordinance.
We had to pass a new law, and suddenly this bubbles up from
the battles of democracy and then we really citizens take control of their government.
Sounds good on paper, but in reality that's not the way these things exist.
Of course, Frank LeRose a good friend of Buddy Lrosa. Frank LeRose,
it's the Secretary State in charge of voting in the state of Ohio.
And Frank LeRose, welcome again to the Bill Cunningham Show. And Frank,
can you educate Scott Sloan who's lost his way on this issue? Yeah,
you're right, Well, this starts with some special interest group with an extra
grind in deep pockets that comes into Ohio and they hire hundreds of people with
flipboards to put an issue on the ballot, and then they spend possibly tens
of millions of dollars to try to get whatever their pet project is engraved into
our state constitution. And that's really the point here. Constitutions exist to lay
out fundamental rights like the right to free speech, not self incriminating, freedom
of assembly, keeping bare arms, those kind of things really fundamental rights,
and also to establish the basic framework work of government and separate branches of government,
separation of powers, these kind of thing. Constitutions don't exist for pet
projects like no matter how you feel about them, marijuana or for that matter,
casinos or abortion just doesn't belong in the state constitution. And certainly Ohio
is an outlier in allowing a majority to amend our States Founding Document. And
we need to fiction as far as the other states. Can you educate to
misinformed about other states? And where is Ohio? Because it doesn't actually occur
where citizens get together, you get one hundred thousand votes, I'll get one
hundred thousand people to sign it. It doesn't work that way at all.
But how does Ohio fit into the scheme of all the other states when it
comes to proposing new laws. So most states recognize that legislating should be done
in the state legislature, where they debate it in both chambers and have a
vote on it and then it goes together. That's where common legislating should be
done. Most states do not allow something as foundational as their constitution to even
be amended by citizen initiative. Of nois and I'm fine with citizen initiative,
but there are only seventeen states in the country that allow citizen in initiated constitutional
amendments. So we're already an outlier, one of seventeen out of the fifty
that even allows citizens to amend their constitution. And of those seventeen, I
think it's nine or ten of them that have safeguards in place, such as
a higher threshold, or even in some states plan For example, in I
believe it's in Nevada, the issue has to be on the ballot for two
consecutive elections before it's approved. Florida requires a sixty percent threshold of the voters
to amend their constitution. Something is important in the constitution, should require a
consensus, a bipartisan consensus of the citizens before you amend the constitution. So
to pass the law, whether you like it or not, there's committee hearings
Republican Democrats, there's arguments made in subcommittees and committees. Then it goes to
the whole General Assembly and it takes many months. Issues are raised, what
about this problem? What about that problem? How does this new law fit
into the constitutional scheme? Do we have notice requirements, what facilities have to
do these procedures? What are the training the people? You have multitude when
it comes to an abortion or other issues of constitution, of statutory problem and
the reason to keep this in the legislation go ahead, and it's still subject
to referendum, right because it's the people where all real power rests. Don't
like what the legislature does. With a simple majority vote, the people,
as has been done in Ohio, can referendum and essentially a citizen veto of
any law of its past. Again, a constitution is very different from the
legislative process, and so months and months and months pro con notice requirement and
so the way these things get on the ballot now that Planned Parenthood writes their
own law. They determine all these difficult requirements about waiting periods, medical conditions.
Planned Parentute determines the qualifications of the abortionists. Planned Parenthood determines whether teenage
girls can get it done, notification of parents, planned parentoo determined sists.
If this one through the legislative process, there'd be months and months of cogitation
of thinking of testimony, should we put this in? Should we not put
it in? And then more debate on the floor. None that the great
debate takes place. Then the law has passed. And as you just said,
if citizens living in Mason or wherever they are, say, you know
what, I don't like that law, which is eighty four pages long.
I want to resend that law. The citizens still have the right to go
through the recision process and take it away. But this particular Planned Parenthood abortion
law is being conjured up and drafted by Planned Parenthood itself. They hire activists
to go around college campuses to get the signatures. Then it's put on and
there's no amendment to that law. You say yay or nay on the law
by Planned Parenthood. Is that correct? That's correct? And really This is
why we don't have a direct democracy. We have a republic where the deliberative
process occurs in an elected state legislature that is accountable to the people. We
then can referend them if we don't like what they do. But this kind
of thing, a constitutional amendment that has tens of millions of dollars worth of
ads run, is subject to demagoguery and listen, abortions just the latest it
could be. The next thing is minimum wage. There's a group that wants
to put a fifteen dollars an hour minimum wage with an automatic inflation of desture
that would kill small businesses. Who knows what the next Bacamamy ideas that are
going to come down the line are that people want to put in our constitution.
My purpose is this, we should not be legislating via constitution. Saved
the legislating for the legislature, and save the constitution for fundamental rights and the
nuts and bolts of how we govern our state. And Frank LeRose, isn't
it true that the left wing activists are the ones that are supporting not raising
the fifty percent threshold at sixty because Columbus is largely now a Republican c there's
Republicans everywhere and said they've lost at the ballot box. They've lost the five
constitutional offices. They've lost the House, they've lost the Senate, they've lost
the Supreme Court of a High they've lost the governorship, lieutenant governor. And
because they've lost at the ballot box, they want to circumvent the votes of
the people to directly pass laws to demagogue the issue. Do you agree that's
it. They know that they cannot enact their radical left wing agenda through our
state legislators. They want to go around it and legislate be a constitution that's
dangerous, and this is about preventing that from happening. Listen, you know,
I'm an army man, but there's an old saying in the Air Force
that if you're taking flack, it means you're over the target. Well,
the left is losing their ever loving minds about this very common sense change to
our constitution. It would put Ohio in line with what most other states have.
The fact that they're losing their minds about this tells us we're probably on
target. A couple other issues Frank Leo's Secretary of State well publicized here in
newsrooms that even Republican governors opposed this, even Republican attorney general supposed this.
And it's like bubbling up that everybody a republic US and Democrats thinks a bad
idea to amend the Constitution at sixty percent. I would add on that two
things rank number one. To amend the US Constitution, it takes two thirds
of the House, two thirds of the Senate, and three fourths of the
states. In Ohio it takes fifty percent. So it's a very lower standard.
And so how do you respond in the argument all these elected Republicans are
stepping forward to stand tall for the average slips, to make sure they have
a voice in their government, as if you can't vote for people like you.
So respond to the argument, you know, relative to the fact that
that somehow that we're taken away the right of the people to control government.
First of all, the lefties and the mainstream press are working over time to
try to discredit this. There have been all of these hyperbolic editorials, one
of them a couple weeks ago said I'm putting a knife to the throat of
democracy. Just absolutely insane kind of talk from these lefty editorial boards. But
yeah, so they're going to dig up and senior statesmen, and listen,
we value their previous service to our state and we honor them as senior statesmen
of our state. But they're wrong. They're just simply wrong on this.
And who knows what is influencing them in their retirement years to try to opine
about something like this, But they're wrong in Ohio. Ands of this,
you're right to mention the difference between the US Constitution of the State Constitution.
The US Constitution has been the most durable constitution in human history. It's been
amended twenty seven times. It is possible to amend the US Constitution, but
the founders were wise to make it difficult. You're right to say seventy five
percent of the states have to ratify an amendment to the US Constitution, and
as a result, the US Constitution is just about seven thousand words. It
fits in your pocket. You can get that US pocket Constitution and stick it
in your shirt pocket. The State Constitution, by contrast, not seven thousand
words, nearly seventy thousand. It doesn't fit in your pocket unless I'm in
my army uniform, got that big pocket on my side. But it doesn't
fit in your pocket. It has been abused by special infers over of the
years, and it's time we put put it into that. So the way
to get this on the ballot is not having people sitting there on drinking beer,
hopefully not bud light at a backyard barbecue with Scott Sloan and his rich
friends and Mason saying, you know what, let's let's propose a new law.
I'll write it, I'll draft it. Let's go out and get four
hundred and eighty five thousand signatures, and we're gonna put that on the ballot.
Yeah, we'll get that damn thing passed. And that's not the way
it happens. It happens when special interests pay tens of millions of dollars to
paid canvassers with clipboards on college campuses, getting lots of people to say,
okay, I think women ought to have healthcare. Well, who wants to
vote against women getting healthcare? That sounds like a good idea. And no
one's ferreted out the good, the bad, the indifferent, the exceptions,
the exclusions which happens in the constitutional process. Can you smell what I'm cooking?
And some of these paid davasters are not even Ohioans. It's it's out
of state folks that have been brought in to stand there and harass people on
the sidewalk. Listen. They cost tens of millions of dollars to try to
run a campaign like this. It's not something people are cooking up in their
backyard with beer or otherwise. It is something that is the result of a
special interest group trying to go around our state legislature and amend our constitution.
And the other thing is there's still the ability to do with called an initiated
statute. You can work with your fellow citizens to try to put a change
to law on the ballot. And the reason why people haven't done that is
the same cost involved in running a constitutional amendment campaign is about the same cost
to run an initiate a statute. If you want to engage in direct democracy,
the way to do that is through initiated statute, not constitutional amendment.
And by the way, what's being proposed in the legislature right now would not
change that. You would still have a fifty percent plus one vote to do
an initiated statute to amend the law, but leave the constitutional life Lastly,
we have about a minute remaining. What would you say to well intended but
completely misguided citizens like Scott Sloan who wants to rabble rouse and get citizens to
step forward your right to votes being taken away. You have to tell him,
first of all, we're a constitutional republic. We're not a democracy or
a constitutional republic. But secondly, this is a terrible way to enact law.
Please address yourself to the thousands of Ohioans who think the six to present
threshold is a bad idea. Oh Willa, you're not going to get me
to pick a fight with Sloan on this one, but I'll say he's wrong
on this. Direct democracy is not how we govern ourselves. That we have
a representative republic. And again, to amend something as foundational as our Constitution
should take a supermajority vote. It should take a bipartisan consensus of Republicans and
Democrats. That's what it would take to reach sixty percent of a state.
You shouldn't be able to do that with a bare majority, because again the
Constitution here, we're talking about something that will be in place for my children
and grandchildren and beyond them, and this is something that should be treated with
care, and a simple air majority should not be enough to amend the Constitution.
Frank LeRose, thank you very much and thank you for your service in
the military on behalf of this great nation. We'll see what happens. It's
a good argument to make. But when you have Republican governors like John Kayzick
and Bob Taft, you have former Republican Attorney generals like Betty Montgomer's stepping forward
to defend the rights of the little guy. Maybe we all want to do
that, but there's a way of doing it the right way and array of
doing it the wrong way. The way now being proposed as wrong. It
should take sixty percent, because the US Constitution is either a sixty six and
two thirds or seventy five percent. It must be overwhelming and an a one
planned parenthood drafting any statute about women's healthcare that'll be demagogued in November to such
an extent we won't recognize the truth. Once again, Frank LeRose, the
second cousin of Buddy Leosa three four seven one, Thank you for coming on
the Bill Cunning Show. Thank you, Frank Willie, Thank you, God
bless America. Let's continue with more and if a line becomes available five one,
three, seven, four, nine, seven thousand or pounds seven hundredth
and new at and t and let's face it. On surface, this sounds
like a good idea. Citizens getting together concerned about some issue and then writing
a statute on their own legal pad, getting all those half million signatures and
then putting it on the ballot for direct democracy. It is a terrible bad
idea. It should take at least sixty and Scott Sloan, you've lost your
way. Let's continue go Cunningham News Radio, seven hundred w L. I'm
doing my best to better myself. That's why I'm taking this learned home dentistry
course. My wife's a real sport. Hold on, dear, That's also
why I listened to Scott Sloan. He discusses the stuff that affects me and
my wife. I think that right here. Look, I'm about the real
stuff, the problems and the issues that actually affect you. But I also
make sure we have a little fun along the way. It never hurts to
better yourself, does it, Dear h Check out Sloaney tomorrow morning and night
on seven hundred WLW and be sure to Catch his podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
Are you ready to move your career forward?