I note a bit of speaking in jest there in the headline. But in our recent podcasts Kate Riga and I have been noting that Sherrod Brown must wish his reelection had coincided with the big abortion referendum that just won in Ohio by 13 percentage points. Could he get his wish? Could this end up on the ballot again in 2024? Let me start by saying that I don’t think he’ll get this lucky. But we can’t rule it out.
Ohio Republicans turned around from their Tuesday defeats to announce that they don’t plan on accepting the results of either the abortion or the marijuana legalization votes. With the marijuana legalization vote there’s actually a fair amount they can do since it was an “initiated statute” rather than a constitutional amendment. At least in theorythey can implement it to death, much as Florida did a few years ago when voters backed the felon enfranchisement. The abortion vote was for a constitutional amendment. So it’s locked in. There’s nothing the gerrymandered legislature can do to keep that text out of the state constitution. But Republicans think they’ve found a way around the state constitution.
Read More
A numbers of TPM Readers have written in today asking what’s up since nothing was published on the site today. Is everything okay, etc? Yes, everything’s fine. Friday was a federal holiday. So the staff was off.