Ohio lawmakers have banded together to fix a little-known state law that would bar President Joe Biden from running in the November election — but there’s one problem. Lawmakers, seemingly unbeknownst to them, gave themselves only until Thursday to sign the bill into law.
Ohio requires parties to confirm their presidential nominees 90 days before the August 7 November election. However, Biden will not be an official candidate until the Democratic National Convention on August 19.
House Minority Leader Allison Russo, D-Upper Arlington, and Democrats were unaware of this, and many other lawmakers on both sides of the aisle also were unaware. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose reminded Democrats as recently as April.
Democrats relied on Republican lend a hand.
To do this, the Republican majority, which is already divided and embroiled in sedate infighting that has resulted in the smallest number of bills being passed in the General Assembly in decades, must pass something now – all to lend a hand Democrats.
Ohio Democrats received support from House Republicans in their effort to put the president on the ballot.
The room was completely stripped Senate Act No. 92provisions authorizing an August special election – repealing a 2022 law that banned the enormous majority of special elections.
Despite the fact that legal experts have stated it was probably illegal even though last year’s election was held in August because state law prohibited it, Ohio still ended up in a special election because the GOP tried to limit a proposal to write abortion rights into the state constitution. Their attempt to stop it failed.
A fixed nomination deadline was introduced in SB 92. Instead of the 90-day requirement, it would now be 74 days.
“I think everyone agrees this is good for democracy,” Russo said. “We want people to have full access to their ballots, and that’s good for both sides.”
SB 92 will move to the floor on Wednesday after leaving committee on Tuesday. Once it most likely passes the House, that means all it needs to be sent to Gov. Mike DeWine is a Senate concurrence vote.
“We’ll see what happens tomorrow on the floor and then also in the Senate,” Russo said. “But the talks have been going well so far.”
It is unclear how involved Republican senators were in the process. WEWS/OCJ reached out to the sponsor of the original SB 92, state Sen. Rob McColley, R-Napoleon, but did not receive a response. The Senate GOP spokesman was absent on Tuesday.
However, Senate President Matt Huffman, R-Lima, agreed in April that his caucus would “certainly try” to address the issue.
As a result, the House – which is at war with the Senate for unrelated reasons – amended its bill.
“It makes notifications much more flexible, whether it’s an email or anything else,” said House Speaker Jason Stephens, R-Kitts Hill. “It gives you flexibility.”
This doesn’t just lend a hand Democrats, Stephens added.
“Just four years ago we were raising this issue,” the speaker said. “The party in power in the White House usually comes last at the convention, so hopefully this will resolve that issue.”
This little-known law was passed as part of a major omnibus bill in 2010. In 2012 and 2020, exemptions were introduced for those years, impacting both parties. In 2016, both the DNC and RNC held their conventions ahead of schedule.
“I think defining the day in a prescriptive way could potentially put us in a position in the future where we have to go back and fix it, but it certainly makes it less likely that we’ll have to do that,” Russo said.
House leaders hope DeWine will sign the bill on Friday, but they also said they still have two weeks to meet the deadline.
“Listen, President Biden will be on the ballot,” DeWine told WEWS/OCJ last week. “This is a quirk in Ohio law that needs to be fixed – and it will be fixed one way or another. I don’t think anyone should worry about it.”
But there is a problem.
Problem
This can be a bit confusing, so here’s the full breakdown.
The deadline to notify Ohio of the party’s presidential nomination is Aug. 7.
Once signed by the governor and delivered to the secretary of state, the bills take effect 90 days later. Ninety days after May 10 is August 8.
August 8 is the day after the deadline for submitting nominations.
After exchanges with the administration of each House caucus and consultations with two additional legal experts, one conclusion can be reached: Lawmakers’ calculations were wrong.
“The only problem you ran into, and you were right, is that you start counting,” said Jonathan Entin, a constitutional law professor at Case Western Reserve University.
Democrats acknowledged the mistake and said they were looking into it. Republicans discussed the issue with their legal team but said it still did not violate state law, adding that they had been working with the secretary of state’s team on the matter. WEWS/OCJ contacted LaRose’s office but did not receive a response.
The GOP also argued that once the law goes into effect, “any prior failure to meet the deadline will be immediately corrected.” It was argued that the deadline for nomination falls before the entry into force of the Act and will not affect the deadline that has already passed.
Democrats acknowledged that yes, it is possible to break the law for a day or more. But both they and Republicans said that wouldn’t be a problem.
Solutions
Two solutions were found for them:
- Adopt a law with an emergency clause so that it comes into force immediately
- Have DeWine sign it by Thursday at the latest
DeWine’s team, asked if he was ready to sign the bill by the end of this week, joked that he was going to check his “ink supply.”
This article was originally published on News5Cleveland.com and are published in the Ohio Capital Journal under a content sharing agreement. Unlike other OCJ articles, it is not available for free republication on other news outlets because it is owned by WEWS in Cleveland.
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