Last year, Ohio voters passed Issues 1 and 2 on abortion and marijuana using a ballot initiative. The vote was drummed up by out-of-state organizations and liberal billionaires. The Republican response to questions about Ohio Issues 1 or 2 should be that some issues are not suitable for the popular vote, as most states recognize by forbidding ballot initiatives from bypassing the legislature. We don’t allow any type of initiative or referendum at the national level because our Founders who framed our Constitution wisely rejected direct democracy.
Yet the liberal media is misusing ballot initiatives to bully Republican legislators into breaking their campaign promises on which they were elected. There is no such thing as a particular “will” of the people, and candidates should honor their campaign pledges rather than allow out-of-state billionaires to rewrite their laws in a harmful way.
Republicans reject the call for a National Popular Vote to pick our president, and instead, that office is filled by the Electoral College. Republican candidates for president should campaign on defending our republican form of government against the progressive strategy of direct democracy.
Our Declaration of Independence stands entirely against infringement on God-given rights by popular vote or by any other means. That timeless document describes the concept of unalienable rights as a “self-evident” truth, yet Trump’s rivals for president seem to think everything is fair game for ballot initiatives.
The Ohio legislature, with its Republican supermajority, could and should overturn the cannabis Issue 2 ballot initiative to prevent Ohio from becoming a decadent culture of pungent weed. The marijuana-saturated states of California and Colorado are hemorrhaging in population, and Midwest legislators should not allow liberal mistakes to transform the middle of our country based on improper ballot initiatives.
In Missouri, marijuana as enacted by ballot initiative has transformed it into a $1.5 billion mecca for pot, with pervasive billboard advertising and retail stores selling it. Child poisonings and motorcycle accidents are sharply higher, while a crisis in fentanyl-related deaths has increased too. Ohio should not have to suffer the same fate.
This post originally appeared at https://www.phyllisschlafly.com/constitution/defending-elections-from-direct-democracy/
