Hon. Jennifer Brunner, Is Limiting Abortion a Pretext for Oligarchy?: Abortion and the Quest to Limit Citizen-Initiated Ballot Rights in Ohio, 2023 Wis. L. Rev. 101 (2023).
In the shadow of a ballot issue attempting to enshrine abortion rights in
the Ohio Constitution, a of the Ohio legislature devised an intervening
constitutional amendment which set a special election, despite having
outlawed special elections earlier in the year. The intervening question before
voters was whether to raise the threshold for constitutional amendments from
fifty percent plus one to sixty percent. While the scheme was viewed by many
as the supermajority’s way to stop the abortion rights amendment from
becoming a constitutional right, there is an argument that using emotionally
charged issues such as abortion is a pretext for schemes that would preserve
and perpetuate oligarchic power.
