Issue 3 Doesn’t Even Pass the Smell Tests

Issue 3 fails four BizzyBlog smell tests right off the bat:

• Length–The whole idea of adding 939 words to the Ohio Constitution is absurd. The US Constitution’s Bill of Rights is in the neighborhood of 500 words. A Constitution is supposed to be a guiding document, not one that goes into nitpicky detail. That’s what laws passed by the legislature do (and even those are too detailed).
• Fixed dollar amounts–What in the world are fixed dollar amounts doing in the Constitution? What happens if there is inflation? Deflation? A currency revaluation? No serious proposal would be this inflexible.
• Non-enforceability, or the requirement for a bureaucracy to attempt enforcement–Certain of the limits, particularly the overall $25,000 limit on contributions to all candidates by individuals, would either require detailed bookkeeping on the part of the individual, or would require a mammoth state bureacracy, or both, to police these limits.
• Contributions by other than individuals are allowed–This is a BizzyBlog pet peeve, and you may not share it, but here it is: Only individual contributions should be allowed, PERIOD. No PACs, no union committees, no advocacy groups–just individuals. I’ll never vote for any issue that allows for non-individual contributions of any kind, and I do everything I can to avoid contributing to any organization that makes those kinds of contributions.

So Issue 3 doesn’t pass four BizzyBlog smell tests. I don’t even need to get into its substance to recommend that you reject it out of hand, although the substantive reasons to send it down to defeat are also there.