ohio supreme court Fracking foes: Elections chief Husted exceeded authority

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

Residents in three Ohio counties where Secretary of State Jon Husted invalidated anti-fracking ballot issues this fall argued in a court filing Tuesday that voters, not the elections chief, should decide the substance of such issues.

Residents in Fulton, Medina and Athens counties told the Ohio Supreme Court that Husted was supposed to decide the validity of their petitions, not the merits of the “community rights county charters” they proposed.

“The rule is that there can be no substantive review of an initiative pre-election,” the filing said. “This court recognizes this rule for the important policy reasons of separation of powers, of judicial restraint, against issuing advisory opinions, and against infringing on the people’s democratic political rights to initiative. The secretary blatantly broke this rule.”

The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund helped the residents craft the ballot proposals and filed the suit.

Husted’s office says his action was “fully rooted in Ohio law.”

The proposed county charters call for restricting development projects related to the gas-drilling technique of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, such as pipelines and injection wells for disposing of fracking wastewater. County commissioners and others filed protests saying the charters would leave counties without an authorized form of government.

Husted ruled in the protesters’ favor, saying the charter proposals improperly sought to circumvent state law in a way that courts have ruled violates the Ohio Constitution.