When politicians gerrymander districts, ignore our needs, or pass laws that hurt our families – we've always had one critical alternative route: citizens initiatives. We could gather signatures, put an issue on the ballot, and let Ohio voters decide directly.

Senate Bill 153 wants to chip away at that power.

Under this bill, collecting signatures for ballot initiatives becomes intimidating and designed to fail:

• Anyone who gets so much as a pizza or a t-shirt while collecting signatures must wear a visible badge and can be subject to legal action
• One mistake and our entire petition could be thrown out – forget to wear a badge, sign the wrong section, or file paperwork incorrectly, and all of the signatures on your petition could get thrown out
• Every signature collector must list their employer on each petition and count their signatures
• Technical violations that have nothing to do with fraud can invalidate an entire citizens initiative

This is intentional. They're making it so legally risky and bureaucratically complex to run citizen initiatives that many will never make it to the ballot.

Why now?

Because citizens initiatives work.

In 2023, we turned to a citizens initiative to preserve our rights to make our own healthcare decisions -- and won.

Citizen Initiatives prevent politicians from ignoring their constituents, so they're trying to take it away.

This is happening RIGHT NOW. On May 27th, 107 Ohioans submitted testimony against this bill. The room was packed with people defending their rights. The politicians heard you – and they're trying to do it anyway.

These efforts remind us how fragile our democracy really is. The rights we thought were guaranteed can disappear with a single bill. The voice we thought was protected can be silenced with new rules.

But here's what we know: democracy is strongest when we come together to defend it.

We have a chance to stop this – and we have strength through collective action.