On Wednesday, March 27, 2024, three Ohio activists who are part of a group attempting to place a citizens’ initiative constitutional amendment on the ballot in Ohio, sued the Attorney General of Ohio in federal court. Brown v Yost, s.d., 2:24cv-1401. The case is assigned to U.S. District Court Judge James L. Graham, a Reagan appointee.
As part of the Ohio constitutional amendment process, the Attorney General of Ohio must judge whether the Summary of the actual text of an amendment to the Ohio Constitution is fair in its description of the actual amendment text.
David Yost, who is the current Ohio Attorney General, rejected a Summary of a proposed amendment, which is called “The Protecting Ohioans’ Constitutional Rights Amendment.” Among the amendment’s provisions is “Qualified immunity, sovereign immunity, prosecutorial immunity, and any immunity provided to the State, political subdivision, or public employee by statute are eliminated.” The entire Summary that was rejected is Page 19 of the Complaint, the link to which is below.
The rejection of the Summary has stopped the signature collection process before it could even start. And, over 400,000 signatures of Ohio registered voters must be gathered by July 3, 2024, for this constitutional amendment to be placed on the November 5, 2024 ballot. If passed on that date, this would become effective on January 1, 2025.
An appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court for expedited review of the Attorney General’s rejection of the Summary was denied, effectively ending any chance of this issue making the November 2024 ballot, but for this litigation in federal court.
Here is the US District Court Complaint.
Thanks to Mark Brown for letting me know about this.