Ohio lawmakers are at odds over effort to ensure Biden appears on November ballot
An effort to ensure that President Joe Biden is on Ohio’s general election ballot stalled Wednesday in the state Legislature, raising the likelihood of legal action to resolve the issue.
It’s the latest twist in what has usually been a straightforward move to fix conflicts between late conventions and state election laws in the past.
This time, with their own convention scheduled for July, Republicans appear less inclined to help Democrats without something for themselves in return.
In a party-line vote, the Republican-controlled Ohio state Senate advanced a bill that would relax a pre-convention deadline for Democrats to certify Biden as their nominee — while also outlawing foreign contributions to state ballot measure campaigns.
The attachment of the latter provision means the state Senate bill conflicts with a state House fix that was introduced this week and included no such conditions. The state House version would allow Biden’s name to appear on the ballot while also allowing more time and flexibility for political parties to certify presidential nominees in future elections.
After the state Senate voted on its measure Wednesday, the Republican-led state House adjourned without considering either version.
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, warned Democrats last month that Biden was in danger of not qualifying for the state’s November ballot because the party’s nominating convention is scheduled to occur after the Aug. 7 deadline for certifying candidates.
LaRose has said a legislative fix passed without an emergency clause must be in place by the end of the day Thursday for it to take effect by the deadline. A state House GOP spokesperson declined to say Wednesday if votes on the legislation were planned before then. A spokesperson for the state House Democratic caucus did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The stalemate means that Democrats might need to go to court to make sure Biden is on the ballot in the purple-turned-red state. Last week, Alabama’s GOP-controlled state House unanimously passed a bill to resolve a similar issue for Biden in that state, and Republican Gov. Kay Ivey quickly signed the fix into law.
“Joe Biden will be on the ballot in all 50 states,” Biden campaign spokesperson Charles Lutvak said in a statement to NBC News. “Election after election, states across the country have acted in line with the bipartisan consensus and taken the necessary steps to ensure the presidential nominees from both parties will be on the ballot.”
Meeting with reporters Wednesday, Ohio state Senate President Matt Huffman suggested that GOP members needed an incentive to help Biden, “because Republicans in both the House and the Senate aren’t going to vote for a standalone Biden bill.”
“There’s a lot of folks in their districts that say, ‘I’m going to go run in my district, and the one vote that I took was to put Joe Biden on the ballot,’” Huffman added. “Eventually, Joe Biden is going to be on the ballot through whatever means that’s going to happen. But I think that it’s fair for us to come together and say, no foreign money in Ohio elections.”
Ohio law requires presidential and vice presidential nominees to be “certified to the secretary of state or nominated” through one of several manners “on or before the ninetieth day before the day of the general election.” That makes Aug. 7 — 12 days before the start of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago — the state’s deadline this year.
The issue has come up in previous elections in Ohio and other states, but until now had typically been resolved without acrimony or fanfare. Democrats and Republicans both had late August conventions in 2012 and 2020.
Justin Levitt, a Loyola Law School professor who served as a senior policy adviser for democracy and voting rights in the Biden White House, said if the Legislature doesn’t resolve the matter, a pricey legal fight almost certainly will.
“The only question is whether it’s fixed cheaply, or expensively, or in a friendly manner or in a non-friendly manner, but it’s going to get fixed,” Levitt said. “This is the easiest lawsuit ever if they bring it, because the law actually asks for a reason if you’re going to impede somebody’s ballot access, and there’s no reason why Ohio needs this answer [on who the Democratic presidential nominee is] as early as it does.”
“The fact that we’re even here at this point, it’s a little bit like a toddler holding its breath,” Levitt added. “The outcome is inevitable. It’s only a question of how embarrassing it is for the toddler in the meantime.”
