Marijuana Legalization Initiative Falls Short on Signatures
ResponsibleOhio, the $20-million campaign to legalize marijuana, learned on July 20 that its petition fell nearly 30,000 signatures short of putting a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot Nov. 3.
The Ohio secretary of state’s office found only 276,082 out of 305,591 signatures to be valid on the petition. The group now has until July 30 to collect the remaining 29,509 signatures. It succeeded in gathering signatures from 73 Ohio counties, well above the required 44 counties.
ResponsibleOhio Executive Director Ian James claimed a discrepancy between the number of signatures submitted and the number counted in the signatures and said he plans to have the Ohio Supreme Court review the count on July 31.
Reasons that signatures were rejected in Hamilton County included invalid addresses, unregistered voters and multiple signatures from the same person.
ResponsibleOhio’s ballot proposal is a constitutional amendment to legalize marijuana for those 21 or older, but it would restrict marijuana growth to just 10 farms, three of which would be in the greater Cincinnati area. Every growth site would be owned by the group’s investors.
The group amended the proposition last February to allow the private growth of four plants in response to opponents, including Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, who said the proposal could create a monopoly on the industry.
On June 30, the Ohio House and Senate voted to place another proposal on the November ballot to amend the state constitution to block the use of a limited amount of commercial farms.
Investors include former basketball star Oscar Robertson, philanthropist Barbara Gould, venture capitalist Frank Wood and former Bengals player Frostee Rucker.
In 2009, James successfully led another ballot initiative for Ohio voters to approve four casinos.
A report released last June by a task force headed by Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters and funded entirely by ResponsibleOhio painted the legalization of marijuana in a mostly positive light. It claimed legalization would create nearly 35,000 direct and indirect jobs and generate an annual economic output of $7 billion.
Critics, including Ohio State Auditor David Yost, questioned the objectivity of the report, claiming that it downplayed potential negative effects of legalizing the drug.
Yost also pointed out that the task force was filled with legalization supporters or those with close connections to the them, including Deters, who works at the same Cincinnati law firm as ResponsibleOhio organizer Chris Stock. (Natalie Krebs)
Education Department Official Resigns over Charter School Data Omissions
David Hansen, the Ohio Department of Education official responsible for the oversight of charter school sponsors, stepped down from his post July 18 after it was revealed that he omitted data about low-scoring online charter schools from reports about charter school sponsor performance in order to make charters look better.
That move breaks Ohio laws regarding reporting of charter performance, some state lawmakers say. Republican State Auditor Dave Yost has said he’s “concerned” about that omission and is examining the situation, but he is not yet launching an official investigation.
The groups measured in the study oversee charter schools across the state.
The revelation comes as charter schools in the state face increasing scrutiny for their lack of performance and state oversight. Ohio charters, which can be nonprofit or for-profit, are held to lower standards than traditional public schools, even though they receive public money.
Schools must have a state-approved sponsoring organization, however, which bears some responsibility for schools’ performance.
The ODE oversight left low-performing online charter schools out of a consideration of charter school performance used to rate sponsoring organizations. Some “F” grades given to schools sponsored by the Ohio Council of Community Schools were omitted from reports.
The OCCS sponsors the 14,000-student Virtual Academy online charter and receives $1.5 million in fees from those students. It also sponsors the OHDELA online charter, which is run by charter school management company White Hat Management. Both schools received F grades.
Representatives for OCCS have said they were unaware that online schools were left out of the state’s performance rankings.
The reports possibly set up the two charter sponsors run by Republican donors for more financial help from the state. Schools that rate well are eligible for millions in extra state funding. Hansen has said he felt the poor performance data from the online charters “masked” better performance by other charter schools in the state.
Before working for ODE, Hansen helmed a pro-charter conservative think tank called Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions. He’s also the husband of Gov. John Kasich’s presidential campaign manager, Beth Hansen.
It’s unclear when or if an official state investigation into the omission will begin. (Nick Swartsell)
This article appears in Jul 22-28, 2015.
