Four Ohio Republican state lawmakers are seeking to strip judges of their power to interpret an abortion rights amendment after voters opted to enshrine those rights in the state’s constitution this week.
Republican state Reps. Jennifer Gross, Bill Dean, Melanie Miller and Beth Lear said in a news release Thursday that they’ll push to have the Legislature, not the courts, make any decisions about the amendment passed Tuesday.
“To prevent mischief by pro-abortion courts with Issue 1, Ohio legislators will consider removing jurisdiction from the judiciary over this ambiguous ballot initiative,” said the mix of fairly new and veteran lawmakers who are all vice-chairs of various House committees. “The Ohio legislature alone will consider what, if any, modifications to make to existing laws based on public hearings and input from legal experts on both sides.”
It’s the latest development in the struggle over abortion rights between the Republican-dominated Legislature and the majority of the voters, who passed the amendment by a margin of 57% to 43%.
I remember George Bush’s Brown Shirts after 9/11. Bullying and howling down anybody who opposed the Iraq war or their conservative agenda.
They went silent after the disaster of his presidency and then became the Tea Party and then MAGA.