The headline on this column is all the evidence you need that we’re not above cheesy gimmicks for a good cause. Pop culture references can attract big audiences, and you keep telling us we need to reach more people about the dangerous assault on Ohio democracy on the Aug. 8 ballot.
Thus, we turn to actress Heather Locklear and Star Wars. Although cheesy, they are on point.
Locklear became widely known in the late 1980s and 1990s for a string of television shows including Dynasty, Melrose Place and T.J. Hooker, but she was yet-to-be discovered in 1984 when she made a commercial for a shampoo called Fabergé Originals. She looked into a television camera and said she liked the shampoo so much that she “told two friends about it, and they told two friends, and so on, and so on.”
If you ever saw it, you remember it. The commercial became an immediate earworm. (You can watch it on Youtube)
That silly commercial offers the strategy for stopping Issue 1. If everyone reading this finds two friends, family members or neighbors who are not aware of Issue 1 and helps them get their absentee ballots to vote, how many votes might that mean? For each one of you, two more cast ballots.
But wait, there’s more. In this strategy, when you activate your two people to vote, you also would get each of them to activate two more people to vote. And then they’d tell two people. And so on. And so on.
We could expand the effort still more through social media, by posting images of our smiling friends and neighbors with their ballot applications. Hashtag #Itold2friends.
I’ve heard from a lot of people who feel helpless about Issue 1. The challenge seems enormous to them. This strategy reduces the challenge from enormous to simple. Who can’t find two people to educate about this terrible move by Ohio’s elected leaders to kill majority rule in deciding Ohio’s important issues.
On step at a time. One voter at a time. We can beat this thing. (You can find all the information you need about registering to vote and getting a ballot at https://tinyurl.com/EverythingIssue1)
Quick reminder: Issue 1 would raise the percentage of votes needed to adopt an amendment to the Ohio constitution from 50 percent plus 1 to 60 percent. The majority rule in force on constitutional amendments for more than a century would perish. Issue 1 would let 40 percent of Ohio’s voters dictate the rules to the 60 percent.
But a vote likely would never happen, because Issue 1 also would require the collection of signatures on petitions in every one of Ohio’s 88 counties, not the 44 that has been the rule since 1912. That makes the process nearly impossible.
Mind you, nothing is broken here. No oddball amendment has been passed. Lawmakers led by Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman -- with encouragement from Secretary of State Frank LaRose -- put this on the ballot to head off a move to legalize abortion in Ohio. They know that under majority rule, abortion would be legalized.
How bad is this? We keep looking for ways to illustrate the damage this will do to the state. To make this as elementary and accessible as we can, we turn to Star Wars.
Lawmakers want you to voluntarily give up your power to overrule them when they pass crazy legislation. They’re telling you that it is good for you to give up that power.
Compare them to Emperor Palpatine in Star Wars. He’s the secret Sith lord who was part of the Galactic Republic government while secretly working to end democracy in the republic and become emperor.
But Palpatine couldn’t do it on his own. He needed the ruling senate to voluntarily relinquish its authority by giving him emergency powers as Supreme Chancellor. Jar Jar Binks is the character who proposes it, and the Galactic Senate, fearing false threats against democracy, agrees.
Palpatine then becomes the monster who Luke Skywalker needs three full-length movies to destroy.
“I love democracy,” Palpatine says as he accepts his dictatorial powers.
In this analogy, you are the Galactic Senate, and Huffman and LaRose are Palatine. Or maybe one is Palpatine’s henchman, Darth Vader. I don’t know. Anyway, the lesson here is that if you don’t voluntarily relinquish your power to change the constitution, Huffman and company don’t get the equivalent of supreme powers while pretending they are protecting democracy.
The ability to change the constitution is the only foolproof check we have against Ohio government run amok. Our elected leaders don’t want us to have that power anymore. And they are lying to us to persuade us to give it up. They want us to fear unnamed “outside interests” who want to change the constitution in the same way Palpatine convinced the Galactic Senate that the republic that it was under threat.
Don’t be the Galactic Senate. Keep the power with the people.
On a side note, I heard from many people after last week’s Issue 1 column about how they had been unaware of this attack on majority rule and will fight it. I also heard from some who said they want changing the constitution to be more difficult because changing the U.S. Constitution is difficult.
First, changing the Ohio constitution already is difficult. That’s why it does not happen often.
Second, the federal and state constitutions have different purposes. The U.S. Constitution is the nation’s statement of principles, with basic rules for government structure. The state constitution is more of an operating manual. It is supposed to be much more detailed.
I also heard from some people criticizing my clear stand on Issue 1. They told me that as a journalist, I should have no bias.
Our Statehouse reporters have churned out more news stories about Issue 1 than anyone, all balanced and straightforward. Part of our mission in the newsroom, however, is advocacy. We have an entire team dedicated to making an impact and improving Ohio and Greater Cleveland. And we are unabashed, as an institution, in opposing Issue 1. We will do everything we can to defeat it.
Help us. Go tell two friends not to be like the Galactic Senate, so they can tell two friends. And so on. And so on.
And may the Force be with you.
I’m at cquinn@cleveland.com.
Thanks for reading.
