Funding from Dark Money Heavyweight, Soros-Supported Foundation, Ed Associations Helps Defeat Ohio Ballot Initiative
An Ohio ballot initiative to make it harder to change the state’s constitution, prior to November’s referendum on whether to codify abortion as a right, has failed – thanks to major opposition funding by radical left-wing groups.
Defeated by a large margin on Tuesday, State Issue 1 would have raised the threshold for passing future ballot measures from 50% to 60%. Because it failed to pass, pro-abortion forces need just a simple majority of Ohioans to vote their way in order to codify a right to abortion in November.
Proponents of the measure, represented by the Protect Our Constitution coalition, wanted to raise the bar in order to keep deep-pocketed special interest groups from pushing leftist agenda initiatives on issues, such as abortion and gun control, on Ohioans.
One Person One Vote, the victorious opposition campaign, raised a total of $14.8 million, with about 16% of it coming from Ohio donors. Donors who gave one million dollars or more to One Person One Vote include:
- The Tides Foundation,
- The Sixteen Thirty Fund,
- Silicon Valley Philanthropist Karla Jurvetson,
- The Ohio Education Association, and
- The National Education Association.
The Tides Foundation, which funnels money to left-wing causes, receives tens of millions of dollars from radical billionaire liberal activist George Soros’ organizations. Tides “washes” the money it receives, then passes it on to the final recipients, in to disguise the identity of its donors.
As InfluencWatch.org explains:
“The Tides Foundation has been described as an organization that ‘washes’ away the paper trail between its grants and the original donor. Tides Founder Drummond Pike stated, ‘Anonymity is very important to most of the people we work with.’”
Tides has given grants to Canadian anti-capitalist group Adbusters, which has incited protests.
The Sixteen Thirty Fund ranks among the largest left-leaning dark money groups, The Atlantic reports:
“The Sixteen Thirty Fund—the indisputable heavyweight of Democratic dark money—was the second-largest super-PAC donor in 2020, according to the investigative organization OpenSecrets, giving roughly $61 million of effectively untraceable money to progressive causes. The organization that connects many of these groups—what a critic might call the mothership—is called Arabella Advisors.”
Karla Jurvetson emerged as one of the largest Democrat donors during the 2020 campaign. She began to ramp up her political-activist giving in 2018, when she gave $5.4 million to a super PAC tied to the pro-abortion women’s group Emily’s List.
“Jurvetson has now given over $22 million in recent cycles to Democratic candidates and causes,” Vox.com reported in March of 2020, noting that Jurvetson made one of the largest political donations in the entire 2020 presidential campaign when she gave $14.6 million to a super PAC dedicated to the doomed presidential bid of Elizabeth Warren.
Pro-Abortion Biden White House Celebrates Failure of Issue 1 in Ohio Special Election
President Joe Biden’s pro-abortion White House is celebrating the failure of a ballot measure called Issue 1 in the Ohio special election.
The White House issued a statement late Tuesday evening after Ohioans voted against Issue 1, a measure that would have raised the threshold to pass amendments to the state constitution from 50 percent plus one to 60 percent. While that amendment would have impacted many issues, the amendment was largely viewed as a proxy war over abortion in Ohio. In November, Ohioans will vote on codifying a radical abortion ballot measure into the state constitution, and Issue 1’s passage would have complicated left-wing activists’ push for abortion on demand.
“Today, Ohio voters rejected an effort by Republican lawmakers and special interests to change the state’s constitutional amendment process,” the White House statement reads. “This measure was a blatant attempt to weaken voters’ voices and further erode the freedom of women to make their own health care decisions. Ohioans spoke loud and clear, and tonight democracy won.”
The Washington Post called the election around 9:00 p.m., with 39 percent of the vote counted. At that point, 60.5 percent of Ohioans voted “no” on Issue 1, and 39.5 percent voted “yes.” As of Wednesday, with most of the votes counted, 57 percent of Ohioans voted “no,” and 43 percent voted “yes.”
If the ballot measure had passed, it would have also required citizens who want to place an amendment on the ballot to collect signatures from at least five percent of voters from the last gubernatorial election in all 88 Ohio counties instead of the current requirement of 44. It would have additionally eliminated the ten-day cure signature period.
Proponents of Issue 1 said the amendment would have protected Ohio’s constitution for out-of-state special interest groups. Opponents of Issue 1, including the left-wing groups championing the abortion initiative, viewed the amendment as an effort to stop their abortion-on-demand agenda in the state. Even so, many coalition members’ own constitutions require supermajorities to amend their bylaws.
Pro-life and pro-abortion groups are now looking ahead to the November election, where each side will engage in a brutal tug-of-war in an attempt to persuade a simple majority of Ohioans to either protect the unborn or enshrine the “right” to end the lives of the unborn in the state constitution.
Opponents of the abortion ballot initiative are urgently warning that it would decimate parental rights, lead to abortion on demand, and even allow minors to pursue sex-change procedures. Notably, the left-wing coalition members pushing the measure have long campaigned to end parental involvement laws.
The language of the abortion ballot initiative is extremely broad and makes no differentiation between minors and adults, instead opting to use the term “individual.”
It states that “every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on: contraception, fertility treatment, continuing one’s own pregnancy, miscarriage care, and abortion.”
Under the amendment, the state would also not be allowed to:
…directly or indirectly, burden, penalize, prohibit, interfere with, or discriminate against either an individual’s voluntary exercise of this right or a person or entity that assists an individual exercising this right, unless the state demonstrates that it is using the least restrictive means to advance the individuals health in accordance with widely accepted and evidence-based standards of care.
“Sadly, attacks on state constitutions are now the national playbook of the extreme pro-abortion Left,” leading pro-life organization Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America said in a statement. “That is why everyone must take this threat seriously and recognize progressives will win if their opponents are scared into submission by the pro-abortion Left.”
“So long as the Republicans and their supporters take the ostrich strategy and bury their heads in the sand, they will lose again and again,” it concluded.
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Twitter @thekat_hamilton.
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