PeaceChicken.com

Ohio voters yesterday resoundingly rejected four amendments to the state constitution, rendering a stinging defeat to would-be reformers who said the issues were necessary to end a “culture of corruption” in state government.

Meanwhile, Issue 1, a $2 billion bond package that Gov. Bob Taft and others promised will bring high-tech jobs to an economically struggling state, was headed for passage.

In an off-year election, voters turned thumbs down on a confusing menu of amendments that would have changed Ohio government at its core. Issues 2-5 were losing statewide by a 2-to-1 ratio and as much as 4-to-1 in Republican-dominated rural and exurban counties.

The defeat of the four issues championed by Reform Ohio Now, a coalition of Democratic-leaning groups, was attributed to their complicated and confusing ballot language and unified opposition by powerful Republican forces under the umbrella of Ohio First.

“The proponents always have a greater hurdle to overcome than the opponents,” said Herb Asher, an Ohio State University political-science professor and a leader of Reform Ohio Now. “All they had to do was either confuse voters or scare them, and they did that well.”

State Rep. Kevin DeWine, R-Fairborn and a leader of Ohio First, said the opposition was helped by what he called “overly complicated and unnecessarily complex” issues, and that when unsure, voters tend to vote “no.”

DeWine did not characterize the defeat of Issues 2-5 as absolution by voters of the scandals that have wracked the GOPcontrolled state government.

With 90 percent of the statewide vote tallied:

• Issue 1 was passing 54 percent to 46 percent. The $2 billion bond issue includes $1.35 billion for local road, bridge and water projects; $500 million for the state’s Third Frontier program to develop high-tech jobs; and $150 million to develop business-ready sites, such as industrial parks.

• Issue 2 was failing 64 percent to 36 percent. It would have permitted voters to request an absentee ballot up to 35 days before an election without giving a valid reason as previously required. The legislature pre-empted the issue by enacting the same provisions.

• Issue 3 was failing 67 percent to 33 percent. It would have limited annual individual and political-action-committee contributions to statewide candidates to $2,000, and $1,000 to legislative candidates, down from the current $10,000 limit for both.

• Issue 4 was failing 70 percent to 30 percent. Voters rejected handing responsibility for drawing legislative and congressional districts every 10 years to a five-member appointed commission. The commission would have been required to adopt the plan with the highest “competitiveness had conceded that revamping the redistricting process was the most important of the four issues, but they said the others were added to build a coalition of good-government groups such as Common Cause and attract financial support from Democratic-leaning organizations still stewing about the 2004 presidential race in Ohio.

• Issue 5 was failing 71 percent to 29 percent. Voters said no to stripping all election oversight from the secretary of state and giving the job to an appointed nine-member board.

Edward B. “Ned” Foley, an Ohio State University electionlaw expert, said the reformers tried to do too much. “I think the RON group overreached both in putting too many issues on the ballot and in the particular way that it wrote several of the issues,” Foley said.

Interviews with voters indicated widespread confusion about the impact of the four amendments after multimillion-dollar media campaigns in which both sides used images of the unpopular Taft to assert that the issues would or would not clean up corruption at the Statehouse.

“It was hard to cut through the noise coming from both sides,” Joe Hamrock, 42, a utility-company employee, said after voting at the Grange Hall in Westerville.

Even though voters rejected Issue 4, Republican Statehouse leaders are left with a responsibility to reform a redistricting process they acknowledged is flawed, Foley said.

“The public discussion that’s occurred on Issue 4 ought to pave the way for a bipartisan consensus on how to do it right that would benefit all citizens,” Foley said. “The current system allows for partisan manipulation, and both the Democrats and Republicans have abused it.”

DeWine said he expects to offer ideas about other possible approaches to redistricting by the first of the year.

Taft thanked Issue 1 supporters gathered at a Downtown restaurant last night and credited an aggressive, grassroots campaign for success after the Third Frontier component failed on its own at the ballot in 2003.

Critics called the Third Frontier “corporate welfare” and said complained that it was combined with the popular construction-funding program that doesn’t expire until 2007.

Taft said the combination made sense as a comprehensive strategy, calling the issue “the perfect marriage of priorities, all focused on the future economy of Ohio.”

Many voters took newspaper clippings and party mailings into polling places to help them interpret the ballot issues. Some said they still didn’t fully understand them.

“I left them blank,” said Jodi Dennis, 44, of Upper Arlington. “I just didn’t know enough about them to go either way.”

In Westerville, Faith Barker, 46, said she voted against all five issues: “It was too unclear to me how they would go about reforming the system. It’s way too confusing when they put all that stuff on the ballot at one time.”