Why Joe Biden could be excluded from Ohio's ballot and what is to come

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – Ohio lawmakers will be back in Columbus next week for a special session at Gov. Mike DeWine’s order. 

This is the first time since 2004 that a governor has used their authority to do so; DeWine said this is an “extraordinary” situation that called for the use. 

“Ohio is running out of time to get Joe Biden, the sitting president of the United States on the ballot this fall,” DeWine said. “This is a ridiculous, this is an absurd situation.”

The presumptive nominees for the November presidential election are former President Donald Trump and current President Joe Biden. But as things stand, Biden will not be on Ohio’s ballot. 

HOW DID WE GET HERE?

Back in April, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose let Democrats know that Biden would miss the deadline to file for Ohio’s election. That’s because of a state law that requires candidates to file their candidacy 90 days before Election Day.

The Democratic National Convention where Biden will officially be nominated happens after that deadline. But since that law was enacted, both in 2012 and 2020, bills were passed to extend the deadline, in one-times fixes, to ensure presidential candidates, on both sides of the aisle, could make the ballot in Ohio.

“It’s been done before, this is not hard and it’s just something that needs to get done,” DeWine said. “We are clearly up against the wall here. If we were to go beyond Wednesday of next week, when you do the math, we have some very serious problems.”

Before DeWine called for a special session to force lawmakers to deal with the problem, leaders at the statehouse said efforts to do that were likely dead.

“That’s probably not going to have a legislative fix. There’s just not the will to do that,” Ohio House Speaker Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill) said. “It’s one of those things that we fixed in the past, I think it could’ve been fixed, but at the same time, this close to the election, it starts to become a political issue.”


WHAT IS THE HOLD UP TO PASS SOMETHING?

Although both the Ohio House and Ohio Senate have introduced bills to fix the issue, there is one major difference: one bill comes with a price to the Democrats, the other does not.

More than two weeks ago, the Ohio Senate passed a Biden ballot fix in House Bill 114.

But it also included Senate Bill 215. That is legislation that Republicans call necessary, but Democrats said would negatively impact ballot initiatives so all Democrats voted against it.

“Even the concept of ‘we need something in return for making sure the President of the United States is on the ballot,’ is an insult to voters,” House Minority Whip Dani Isaacsohn (D-Cincinnati) said. “It’s embarrassing to the state and it’s an unacceptable position for people who call themselves leaders to take.”

“The law in Ohio hasn’t changed. I’ve got to get my name on a ballot 90 days before an election and Joe Biden ought to as well,” Representative Adam Bird (R-New Richmond) said. “There’s a price to be paid, I think, and we deserve to get something for their mistake. So, I think we can go ahead and get a prohibition on foreign campaign spending.”

But the House also never took that bill up for a vote, they adjourned before getting to it.

“I voted not to adjourn,” Bird said. “We’ve got business to do, we’ve got to get Biden on the ballot, we’ve got to get a lot of things done.”

“I was always skeptical that there was going to be a legislative fix that was clean,” Ohio House Minority Leader Allison Russo (D-Upper Arlington) said. “Foreign in money is already illegal in the state of Ohio. I frankly think this is a distraction.”

The House has their own version of a Biden ballot fix in Senate Bill 92; their language would provide a long-term fix, with no catch. 

“We saw an attempt to have a bipartisan solution,” Ohio Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio (D-Lakewood) said. “It was not support by the leadership in the majority when it came to working together to solve the issue.”

But the House ultimately never took a vote on their bill either to send over to the Senate. Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman (R-Lima) said either way, his caucus would not have voted for a standalone Biden bill, without something in return.

And despite members like Ohio House Majority Floor Leader Bill Seitz (R-Cincinnati) who said he would personally vote for a standalone Biden ballot solution; he said many others would not.

“Quite a number of our colleagues said that they would categorically refuse to vote for a bill that simply put Mr. Biden's name on the ballot,” Seitz said. “They're afraid of being tarred and feathered as loving Democrats if they do so, despite the fact that we pointed out that my friend Mr. Trump wants Biden on the ballot.”

“It was simple in Alabama; it was simple in Ohio the last few times we had to do this. It should be simple this time,” Isaacsohn said. “I am confident there are other ways to get the president on the ballot, but it would be nice if Ohio had a legislature and had a government that just did its job.”

DeWine also called for lawmakers to take up that foreign money bill. He said it is something that makes sense.

“I’m calling for the action on both of these,” DeWine said. “I have been patient, and my patience has run out. And I think the patience of the people of the state of Ohio, their patience should’ve run out by now as well,” DeWine said. “The main point is we need to give Ohio voters the opportunity to vote for either of the two major candidates they want to vote for.”

And despite Republican leaders in both chambers agreeing on the concepts of the foreign money bill, there are now four pieces of legislation, three from the Senate and one from the House, to address with that policy.

“It’s a matter of approach,” Stephens said. “We should be able to come up with a solution that’s very straightforward and get it done without this gamesmanship.”

“We are not going to be held hostage to these attacks on direct democracy,” Isaacsohn said. “[Republicans] are embarrassed and upset that they lost in their power grab last August, they lost in November when it came to marijuana and reproductive rights and frankly what we are seeing is a bunch of mostly grown men being sore losers.”

ARE THERE OTHER OPTIONS?

There are other ways to get this done.

“Biden will be on the ballot, there are multiple pathways to doing that,” Russo said. “The legislative fix is not the only path, in fact I felt pretty sure that was going to be the least likely path.”

Some of the other options include:

• Democrats could figure out a solution with the national party.
• It can be taken up in the courts.

But DeWine said he would rather this not be an issue for the courts, and it is something the legislature must take seriously.

“It’s not just the potential, his name would not be on the ballot unless a court would intervene and we should not be looking to the courts to solve our problems in the state of Ohio,” DeWine said.

A lot of the fallout, and the reason nothing has gotten done to address the issue of Biden being on the ballot yet is because of continuing Republican infighting. 

WHAT’S NEXT WEEK'S LEGISLATIVE SCHEDULE?

So far, the Ohio House has set their schedule. Seitz said they will need to introduce an entirely new bill, since this is a special session. So, that will happen on Tuesday. No votes will actually take place until Thursday.

But, even when the legislature does come back for their special session, they still technically do not need to pass anything to be sent to the governor’s desk.