Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose seems to never stop finding ways to undermine his own reputation, with decisions that flout his job duties as the state’s chief election official.
He did it again last month, when he approved blatant partisan language for the Citizens Not Politicians state amendment on the November ballot. It’s the third Issue 1 on a statewide ballot in as many years.
The language LaRose approved for this Issue 1 is meant to mislead voters about the nature of the amendment, critics contend, making it look like a change to promote gerrymandering when it’s actually a proposal to outlaw unfair practices in drawing up boundaries for political districts.
That, in our view, is a serious transgression. The group responsible for the proposed amendment and the ACLU agree. In a lawsuit filed with the state Supreme Court, they asked the court to order that LaRose correct the ballot language, describing LaRose’s current version as being “biased, inaccurate, deceptive and unconstitutional.”
A decision from the court could come early next week.
Now LaRose is suggesting that drop boxes for votes be eliminated and he wants to restrict who can assist disabled voters. Changes are needed to prevent fraud, he argues, without presenting any evidence that any fraud has been committed.
The Ohio Capital Journal reported about LaRose this way: “He continues to change the rules in ways that make it more difficult for some Ohioans to vote — particularly new citizens and the disabled. Meanwhile, he’s supposed to conduct elections neutrally, but the things he’s done concerning the state’s extreme partisan gerrymandering are clearly biased in favor of his own party and his friends, a watchdog said.”
LaRose’s partisanship was becoming more clear to Ohioans in 2022, when he was a candidate for the U.S. Senate in the Republican Primary, begging for former President Donald Trump’s endorsement.
Even more disturbing was how he handled the Issue 1 reproductive rights amendment to the state constitution in 2023, in addition to Issue 1 in 2022, a vote designed to replace majority rule with minority rule in an effort to stop the majority from voting in favor of abortion rights.
In 2022, LaRose allowed a one-issue, special election to go forward in that desperate effort to thwart the will of the people who support full equal rights for women. It failed by a landslide, a predictable outcome.
But that election cost Ohio taxpayers more than $25 million. It’s a terrible waste of taxpayer money and we don’t know whether LaRose was so delusional that he actually thought equal rights could be defeated, or if it was just a cynical move to appease the die-hard base of the Republican Party.
LaRose lost his Senate bid in the Republican primary in 2022 to J.D. Vance. We’re not sure if LaRose is more damaging to the interests of Ohioans as secretary of state, or if we’d have been better off if we had sent him to Washington.
But we’re stuck with what we got. That does not mean we should not hold him accountable. The ballot language for the Citizens Not Politicians amendment should be changed to be and accurate statement of the amendment’s intent: to outlaw gerrymandering, not enshrine it.
When politicians draw biased, weirdly shaped voting districts to favor their own interests, it’s called gerrymandering, and Ohio is one of the 10 most gerrymandered states. Ohio politicians even recently implemented voting districts the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional.