Are we the frogs in the boiling frog metaphor? Just asking. You remember the tale, right? The frogs are sitting in a pot of water that’s gradually getting hotter. But they’re only slightly uncomfortable with the rising temperatures and don’t react until it’s too late. They keep adjusting to the heat (normalizing it?) even as they’re boiled alive.
Are we making similar adjustments to the rising temperatures in Ohio that are gradually corroding democracy to make way for a permanent autocracy? Have we grown numb to the everyday outrages (historic corruption, deception, cheating) coursing through state government by out-of-control extremists above the law? Will we even notice the progressive peril to government of, by, and for the people in time to save ourselves or simply adapt to the heat until it’s too late?
Make no mistake. The piecemeal demise of our representative democracy in Ohio is well underway. The water has been on a low boil for years. We just got used to it. Ignored it. Let it become a hot mess. Our state elections chief is trying to cook the outcome of a statewide election with brazenly prejudicial ballot wording on an anti-gerrymandering initiative he opposes. Our governor is gaslighting Ohioans about that same initiative leading to the worst gerrymandering ever if district-rigging politicians like him are removed from the redistricting process.
Ideological autocrats from the Party of Trump are playing the long game to erode all of the democratic guardrails in state government and to fortify their unchecked power in the executive, legislative and judicial branch. They continually push the envelope over the lawless edge and dare anyone to stop them. Our state attorney general is purposely waging prolonged litigation to stymie progress on the abortion rights amendment voters passed overwhelmingly and to argue (lamely) that it doesn’t say what it says.
Slowly but surely, Ohio’s Republican overlords have engineered total control over the state precisely to ignore the will of voters with impunity. They assume their undemocratic schemes will fly with the Republican-majority on the state supreme court. They helped cement that majority with a GOP law crafted specifically to produce such an outcome (if not judicial impartiality) in a solidly red state.
Partisan labels were slyly expanded to certain judicial candidates on the ballot, including, for the first time, supreme court races. Why? To encourage party line voting of down ballot judges. Forget qualifications or judicial temperament or what both would bring to real life issues before the court. This was a small change — attaching party affiliation to candidates running for state supreme court in 2022. An easy-to-miss temperature warming for us frogs.
Did you notice? Or simply adapt as our ostensibly independent, nonpartisan court was cooked by the predictable sweep of Republican wins in three supreme court races? The strategy to politically ID supreme court justice candidates on the ballot worked. It secured GOP control of the state’s highest court and eliminated the last government bulwark against chronic abuse of absolute power. With a majority of justices broadly aligned with the party agenda on the bench, Republicans lawmakers and statewide officials can rule as they please and justify the indefensible on, say, abortion rights or gerrymandering in solidarity with their team players on the high court
Do you detect the temperature rising yet? Ohio AG Dave Yost is pursuing every legal Hail Mary to keep pre-Dobbs abortion restrictions in the Ohio Revised Code. He expects his appeals (that dismiss the resolute will of voters on abortion access) will find favor with the Republican majority on the state supreme court. The anti-abortion justices could even invent their own justifications to overrule lower court rulings that increasingly block state abortion restrictions violating the “clear and unambiguous” language of last year’s Issue 1.
The constitutional abortion rights amendment explicitly bars the state from directly or indirectly burdening, prohibiting, penalizing, or interfering with access to abortion and discriminating against abortion patients and providers. To that end, judges have blocked Ohio from enforcing state laws banning the use of telemedicine in medication abortion or prohibiting non-doctors — including midwives, advanced practice nurses and physician assistants — from prescribing the abortion pill mifepristone.
Those temporary injunctions followed an earlier court ruling blocking enforcement of several laws that (combined) made it harder to get an abortion in the state by forcing patients to wait a minimum of 24 hours after receiving unwarranted state-mandated information in person before being allowed to obtain an abortion in Ohio. Yost vows to battle on for the state’s unconstitutional abortion laws until he gets to his team players on the high court who will presumably affirm his “common sense” restrictions on women as constitutional.
We’re in hot water in Ohio. Question is have we adapted to the burn?
Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David Dewitt for questions: [email protected]. Follow Ohio Capital Journal on Facebook and X.
