(COLUMBUS, Ohio)—The Ohio Attorney General’s Office today certified the petition for the Fresh Start Act, a proposed initiated statute.
On June 24th, the Attorney General’s Office received a written petition for an initiated statute, entitled “Fresh Start Act,” from the group Responsible Ohio. The submission was certified today as containing both the necessary 1,000 valid signatures from registered Ohio voters and a “fair and truthful” summary of the proposed law.
“Without passing upon the advisability of the approval or rejection of the measure to be referred,…I hereby certify that the summary is a fair and truthful statement of the proposed law,” Ohio Attorney Mike General DeWine stated in his certification letter.
Once the summary language and initial signatures are certified, the Ohio Ballot Board must determine if the proposal contains a single law or multiple laws. The petitioners must then collect signatures for each proposed law from registered voters in each of 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties, equal to 1.5 percent of the total vote cast in the county for the office of governor at the last gubernatorial election. Total signatures collected statewide must also equal 3 percent of the total vote cast for the office of governor at the last gubernatorial election. Once signatures are verified by the Ohio Secretary of State, the Ohio General Assembly has four months to act upon the proposed law. If the proposal is not passed, the petitioners have an opportunity to gather the same number of signatures to have the proposal placed on the ballot.
The full text of today’s letter and of the amendment petitions submitted can be found at www.OhioAttorneyGeneral.gov/Petitions.
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