ALL EYES ON THE BUCKEYE STATE There’s a major, if slightly convoluted, indicator on how Ohio voters feel about abortion rights happening today. And Democrats worry other red states will follow suit. In a wonky special election, Ohioans are voting on whether to raise the threshold for amending the state’s constitution via a ballot initiative. If this initiative, known as Issue 1, passes, future changes would require 60 percent rather than a simple majority to pass. What’s really at issue here: There’s another ballot initiative coming up in November, which would codify abortion rights in the Ohio Constitution. If Issue 1 passes, it means a higher threshold for the abortion rights provision in a red state, rather than a simple majority. Democrats see this as a direct attempt by the GOP to circumvent the will of a majority of the state’s voters. “If this were to pass, it would be something that very ideologically extreme folks in legislatures across the country might say, ‘Hey, we want to pursue that. It passed in Ohio,’” freshman Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) told Huddle on Monday. “When it fails, it'll be a cautionary tale.” Reminder: Republican officials tried to reinstate an Ohio law that banned abortions after cardiac activity is detected in the embryo, which typically happens around six weeks. The law is on hold for now, as it faces court challenges from state abortion clinics. “This is not a Republican ballot measure. It's not a conservative ballot measure. It is an authoritarian ballot measure. It’s an anti-democratic ballot measure,” Landsman, who flipped a GOP-held seat in 2022, said. “Because citizens are very eager to restore reproductive freedom in Ohio — and hold elected officials accountable for any other freedom that may be taken away — this has huge implications for that. It would make it infinitely more difficult.” On the ground in Ohio: Landsman said that he encountered a long line when he went to vote early last Wednesday and that he met one Ohioan who’d cut short a vacation to make sure they could cast a ballot. “It suggested, one, there is energy and enthusiasm and people take their democracy very, very seriously. And when you threaten democracy, the democracy will spring into action,” Landsman said, adding that he thought the Aug. 8 election date was an effort to drive down turnout, a potential advantage for the GOP. Recent public polling backs up Landsman’s assessment of Ohio voters’ feelings. A USA Today/Suffolk University poll conducted last month showed 57 percent of likely Ohio voters said they opposed Issue 1, including 41 percent of Republicans, while just 26 percent of respondents support it. That same poll showed support for November’s abortion amendment vote at 58 percent among those surveyed. Mostly quiet from Ohio Republicans: It has support from conservatives like Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who has appeared in an ad supporting the measure, but many Republican lawmakers aren’t going out of their way to talk about it. We did hear from one congressman, Rep. Bill Johnson, who told Huddle: “The bottom line: Issue 1 is an opportunity to strengthen Ohio’s constitution, and that’s why I’m voting Yes!” Your Huddle hosts reached out to every Republican House member for an interview on this issue, as well as GOP Sen. J.D. Vance, who’s been supportive of the push in other venues. Granted, it’s recess, but the only response we got was from Johnson. Related read: Ohio’s proxy war over abortion reaches its final battle, by Madison Fernandez and Alice Miranda Ollstein MANCHIN CELEBRATES INFLATION REDUCTION ACT It’s been anything but smooth, but one year in, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is leaning into the benefits of the climate, tax and health care legislation he played a crucial role in crafting. In a statement to Huddle, Manchin talked up “one of the most historic pieces of legislation passed in decades,” including measures lowering the national debt, curbing prescription drug prices, capping insulin prices, securing health benefits to coal miners and what the senator called “all-of-the-above” energy provisions. “These types of investments are exactly what I had in mind when I wrote” the Inflation Reduction Act, Manchin said. The celebratory tone from the West Virginia senator is especially notable given his loud complaints in recent months over the Biden administration’s implementation of the law’s climate change provisions. Manchin nodded to that ongoing fight in his statement. “While I have and will continue to fight the Biden Administration’s unrelenting efforts to manipulate the law to push their radical climate agenda at the expense of both our energy and fiscal security, I am also proud of the money it is saving hard-working families and the economic opportunities it is bringing to communities in West Virginia and across America,” Manchin said in his statement. — Burgess Everett and Anthony Adragna
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