(COLUMBUS, Ohio)—The Ohio Attorney General’s Office today certified the petition for a proposed amendment to the Ohio Constitution that would impose term limits for members of the Ohio Supreme Court and change which laws apply to members and employees of General Assembly.
On October 26, 2016, the Attorney General’s Office received a written petition to amend the Ohio Constitution from a group called the Committee to Impose Term Limits on the Ohio Supreme Court and To Preclude Special Legal Status for Members and Employees of the Ohio General Assembly. The petition 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 amendment.
“Without passing upon the advisability of the approval or rejection of the measure to be referred, but pursuant to the duties imposed upon the Attorney General’s Office […] I hereby certify that the summary is a fair and truthful statement of the proposed law,” Attorney General DeWine stated in the certification letter.
Once the summary language and initial signatures are certified, the Ohio Ballot Board must determine if the amendment contains a single issue or multiple issues. The petitioners must then collect signatures for each issue from registered voters in each of 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties, equal to 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 10 percent of the total vote cast for the office of governor at the last gubernatorial election.
The full text of today’s letter and the amendment petition submitted can be found at www.OhioAttorneyGeneral.gov/Petitions.
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