A citizen鈥檚 campaign that wants to ask Ohio voters whether to end qualified immunity for public workers, like police officers, cleared another hurdle Tuesday in front of the Ohio Ballot Board.
Like it did in December, the board unanimously 5-0 to leave the Ohio Coalition to End Qualified Immunity鈥檚 proposed constitutional amendment intact, clearing coalition members to immediately start signature-gathering. Their petition seeks to get rid of the doctrine shielding public workers from potential civil liability, particularly in civil rights cases.
Jenny Rowe, Coalition to End Qualified Immunity co-founder and volunteer, lost her partner Sean when he was fatally shot in a 2021 police standoff.
鈥淚t鈥檚 definitely timidly exciting, because now we have to get over 420,000 signatures,鈥� Rowe said in an interview Tuesday. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a huge win. We lost half of our cases, but we won the ones that mattered.鈥�
The relatively uneventful vote follows four years of brick batting between the coalition and Attorney General Dave Yost, who rejected their petition eight times prior to taking it to the U.S Supreme Court鈥攚hich declined to consider his request to stay a preliminary injunction pushing him to certify proposed summary language.
When certifying the language 鈥渙ver his objections,鈥� Yost added that his office would work on 鈥渓egislation to reform the ballot initiative summary process to protect the integrity of Ohio鈥檚 elections.鈥�
鈥淗e severely sabotaged our campaign deliberately because he didn't want this issue on the ballot,鈥� Coalition to End Qualified Immunity Founder Cynthia Brown said Tuesday.
With a July deadline for more than 440,000 valid signatures, it would be a tall task to make the November 2025 ballot, so Brown said they are targeting 2026 instead with a mix of paid and volunteer petition circulators. 鈥淲e're not going to just rush ourselves,鈥� she said.
Only three states have limited the use of qualified immunity as a defense for officers accused of civil rights violations: Colorado, Connecticut and New Mexico, to gun safety advocates Everytown. Generally, efforts to end qualified immunity face the fiercest opponents in police unions like the Fraternal Order of Police.
READ MORE:
- Ohio's AG approves qualified immunity issue he opposes after U.S. Supreme Court ruling
- After years of trying, group working to end qualified immunity in Ohio can take next step
- Coalition Moving To Eliminate Qualified Immunity For Ohio Police Officers