Opinion ID: 4525113
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: the request for an expansion of time

Text: {¶ 101} The decision reached above does not mean that we should extend the deadline for submitting a sufficient number of signatures so that the Secure and Fair Elections Amendment may appear on the November 3, 2020 general-election ballot. Just as I am bound by the fact that the Ohio Constitution does not impose a single-subject requirement on the people’s right to amend the Constitution, I am equally bound by the plain and unambiguous language of Article II, Section 1a that an initiative petition to amend the Constitution must be filed 125 days before the next regular or general election in order to appear on that ballot. While recognizing that we have extended constitutional time deadlines in cases such as State ex rel. LetOhioVote.org v. Brunner, 123 Ohio St.3d 322, 2009-Ohio-4900, 916 N.E.2d 462, it is manifest that this case is distinguishable. In LetOhioVote.org, for example, the secretary of state’s actions precluded the petitioners from obtaining the required number of signatures within the 90-day period allowed to collect them, and it would have denied the right of the people to referendum without an extension. Id. at ¶ 8, 54. {¶ 102} But this is not a case in which government officials are thwarting the ability of the people to put an initiative to amend the Constitution on the ballot. Here, relators began the process to propose an amendment to the Constitution on 39 SUPREME COURT OF OHIO February 10, 2020, when they submitted their initial petition to the attorney general. They therefore share responsibility for the compressed time in which they may file a sufficient number of signatures in order for their proposed amendment to appear on the November 3, 2020 ballot. Further, their claim of prejudice fails. Although they assert that delaying a vote on the amendment until November 2021 “would convert the specified February 1, 2021 effective date [for two sections of the amendment] from a delayed effective date into a retroactive effective date,” that assertion is wrong as a matter of fact. The petition attached to the complaint indicates that those sections would take effect on February 1, 2022. Equity therefore does not demand that we grant the requested order to extend the 125-day deadline to place the amendment on the November 3, 2020 general-election ballot.