Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted may have stepped out of bounds by keeping “community bill of rights” proposals off the ballot in Ohio. Residents of Medina, Athens and Fulton counties gathered required signatures to place proposed county charters on their respective ballots in 2015. Medina County Board of Elections (BOE) disallowed their residents’ proposal, and all of the proposed charters were kept off the ballots by Husted.

Husted interjected his interpretation of what “should” go on the ballot, as citizens came forth and asserted their constitutional right to create local laws when our higher-level government is not working for us. The Ohio Supreme Court upheld Husted’s decision. The primary legislative issue is that the 2004 ‘Niehaus Bill’ (HB 278) gave Ohio state regulators full control of oil/gas production, usurping home rule from communities.

This year, citizens of four counties – Athens, Medina, Meigs and Portage– updated charter language and gathered required signatures. All respective boards of elections and Husted denied citizens their right to place their charters before voters in November 2016. On September 13, the court again upheld Husted with a 6-1 decision.

The compelling feature of these county charters is “community bill of rights” language which outlines bans on new oil and gas production infrastructure within their counties. These bans are based on residents’ unalienable rights– chiefly to potable water, clean air, unimpeded use of their private property, freedom from toxic trespass, local control, as well as recognizing rights of the natural environment to flourish. A violator’s “corporate personhood rights” would be deemed null-and-void in the community, and any resident(s) could file for restitution on behalf of the community.

NOTE: Jimmy Stewart, president of the Ohio Gas Association, was installed onto the Meigs County Board of Elections prior to the 2016 decision, where residents have been fighting to stop the deluge of frack waste deep injection disposal wells. Meigs County BOE voted 4-0 to keep the charter petition off their ballot.

Despite the court’s 2016 decision, they recently ruled that last year’s (2015) Meigs County Board of Elections decision was unconstitutional. Conveniently, this came more than a year too late for electors.

The court threw out most of Husted’s 2015 direct-democracy roll-back as well. They supported his opinion that language did not hold sufficient structural content for county government operation, however they also stated that his office does not hold authority to decide whether “content” (legislative, as opposed to administrative) of the petition is legal. That is for the courts to decide, after the electorate has a chance to vote on it. After all, if our government was created to allow citizens to alter it when deemed necessary, how is that possible when that government blocks the pathway to alter it?

The 2015 decision also created a “weasel-window” by ambiguously stating that the proposed charter petitions must meet “threshold requirements” that define a charter initiative. This left it open for the court to tailor their interpretation of threshold requirements, keeping citizen-based initiatives off the ballot ad infinitum.

Another direct-democracy theft resulted from ambiguity in how Husted interpreted that the initiatives were required to stipulate an alternative form of government, per Ohio code (ORC 302). The interpretation, upheld by the court, necessitates that the county charters must choose an alternative form of government (including installment of a county executive). The initiatives, however, are not attempting to change the form of government: they are fortifying the existing county government structure with limited local constitutional powers.

The one dissenting opinion on the court was from Justice O’Neill, the only non-Republican, and stated in part:

“To the extent that the secretary of state asks this court to apply the provisions of the Revised Code to limit the form of government that the people may adopt for themselves through Article X, Section 3, that interpretation exceeds the constitutional authority of the general Assembly and the secretary of state by invading the broad power reserved to the people. The secretary of state does not have the power to veto charter petitions on behalf of the oil and gas industry simply because the citizens did not pick exclusively from the forms of county government delineated in R.C. 302.02. This is a usurpation of power from the people that we should not indulge.”

The Columbus Community Bill of Rights (CCBOR) grassroots group has been attempting to get signatures approved for the ballot in central Ohio for two years. The group stays optimistic despite the recent setbacks in the state, reminding people: “As Ohio residents, we have hands, feet and voices to solidify our will. The courts’ opinions can be swayed. Letters in our local paper, and especially feet/hands/voices out among the people to spread awareness and gather signatures for initiatives, hold our power. In numbers, we must put back into balance the workings of our democratic governance to uphold the needs and welfare of real people.

Our country’s founding documents, even our Ohio Constitution, state that the citizens have the right to alter, reform or abolish our government, whenever we deem it necessary. Alter and reform our government we will. Citizens in the state of Ohio have to stop the buck now, and demonstrably affirm that we live in a Participatory Representative Democracy… if we don’t use it, we lose it.

Greg Pace is co-founder of the Columbus Community Bill of Rights