In a unanimous decision, the Republican-majority Ohio Supreme Court rejected a last-ditch effort by GOP legislators to keep a proposed amendment that would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution off the November ballot, the Columbus Dispatch reports.
The Republican lawsuit was filed within a week of the amendment effort getting enough signatures to get on the ballot. It was paired with the failed effort to raise the percentage of votes needed to pass an amendment as ways conservatives would kill the democratic process. Republicans argued that the amendment would nullify current Ohio statutes, and therefore those laws need to be listed in the new pro-choice amendment.
“The fair and natural reading of (Ohio law) does not require a petition proposing a constitutional amendment to include the text of an existing statute,” according to the court’s opinion. Republican Justice Pat Fischer noted that the Republicans filing the complaint hadn’t been able to specify which part of Ohio law the new amendment would nullify.