Attorney General DeWine Certifies Petition for Access to Healthcare Act

(COLUMBUS, Ohio)—Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine today certified the petition for the proposed Access to Healthcare Act.

On September 4th, the Ohio Attorney General’s Office received a written petition for initiated statute, entitled “The Access to Healthcare Act,” from the committee to represent the petitioners, Healthy Ohioans Work. The submission 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,…I hereby certify that the summary is a fair and truthful statement of the proposed constitutional amendment,” DeWine stated in a letter to the petitioners.

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 1.5 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 3 percent of the total vote cast for the office of governor at the last gubernatorial election. If enough valid signatures are submitted, the Secretary of State will forward the proposal to the General Assembly, which has four months to act on the proposed law. If the General Assembly fails to pass the law, either in original or amended form, supplemental petitions may be circulated to have the proposal placed upon the next general election ballot, subject to the same signature requirements.

The full text of today’s letter and of the amendment petitions submitted can be found at www.OhioAttorneyGeneral.gov/BallotInitiatives.