COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A new law that bans aliens and green card holders from contributing to ballot initiatives in Ohio curtails constitutionally protected rights to free speech and association, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday in federal court.
Republican governor. Mike De Wijn signed the measure on June 2, after lawmakers linked it to a bill that adjusted Ohio’s election calendar to ensure Democratic President Joe Biden would appear on the November ballot.
Attorneys from Elias Law Group, a leading Democratic law firm, and Cooper Elliott told the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio that HB 1 “would unconstitutionally impede public debate by enforcing new broad and sweeping prohibitions” on ballot spending.
“Because of HB 1, all noncitizens are now threatened with investigation, criminal prosecution, and mandatory fines if they even indicate that they intend to engage in election-related expenditures or contributions — including supporting or opposing ballot questions in virtually any capacity,” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit argues that the law, which takes effect September 1, violates both the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
It was brought on behalf of OPAWL – Building AAPI Feminist Leadership, the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless, a German citizen and her husband living in Cleveland and a Canadian citizen living in Silver Lake, a suburb of Kent. OPAWL is a grassroots organization of Asian, Asian American and Pacific Islander women and non-binary people living in the state.
Republicans in the Statehouse defended the ban on foreign campaign donations after a series of ballot proposals failed to go their way. Voters overwhelmingly sided with GOP leaders last year on three separate ballot proposals, including protecting access to abortion in the state constitution, rolling back a proposal to make it harder to make such constitutional changes in the future and legalizing recreational marijuana.
Political committees involved in the first two attempts took money from entities that had received donations from Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss over the past decade, although any direct path from him to the Ohio campaigns is untraceable under campaign finance laws that are not addressed in Ohio law. Wyss lives in Wyoming.
John Fortney, spokesman for Republican Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman, argued that the lawsuit’s filing proves Democrats’ reliance on donations from wealthy foreigners.
“The Ohio Constitution is not for sale, despite the progressive left’s un-American sellout to foreign influence,” he said in a statement.
A decision to include green card holders in the ban was made in the House of Representatives, against the advice of the chamber’s third-ranking Republican. Bill Seitza Cincinnati attorney, who voted against the amendment.
Seitz cited a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said extending such bans to green card holders would raise “substantial questions” about constitutionality.
