House Democrats Respond to Flawed Issue 1 Supreme Court Ruling

COLUMBUS - Ohio House Minority Leader Allison Russo (D-Upper Arlington) and State Representative Terrence Upchurch (D-Cleveland) today released the following statements regarding the Ohio Supreme Court's ruling, mostly upholding misleading Issue 1 ballot language authored by Republican politicians:

"The Republican-controlled Ohio Supreme Court simply rubber stamped the purposely inaccurate and misleading Issue 1 ballot language," said Leader Russo. "The people are tired of power-hungry politicians using lies and misinformation to distract from the real problems they face. That's why Ohioans will not only vote 'yes' on Issue 1, but they will also remove politics from the Supreme Court and elect judges who will return respect and the rule of law to the highest court in our state."

Rep. Upchurch represents the House Democrats on the Ohio Ballot Board and voted against the misleading ballot language.

"It's deeply troubling but not surprising that Republicans on the Ohio Supreme Court today mostly ignored commonsense and honesty in favor of political gymnastics designed to trick voters into voting 'no' on Issue 1 in November," said Rep. Upchurch. "But voters are smarter than that. Ohioans know that citizens, not politicians, have the ultimate power to change their government- whether that's restoring sanity to the Supreme Court or voting 'yes' on Issue 1 to ban politicians and lobbyists from controlling the redistricting process."

The court did take issue with some errors in the ballot summary language and ordered the Ballot Board to reconvene to adopt new language replacing misleading statements on the judicial process and citizen advocacy in the original summary. The Republican-controlled Ballot Board will meet Wednesday at 9:30 a.m.