Summary of petition to amend Ohio’s minimum wage accepted
Dave Yost
COLUMBUS – The Ohio Attorney General’s Office this week accepted a petition seeking to amend Article II, Section 34a of the Ohio Constitution, which sets the state’s minimum-wage rate.
The proposed amendment would raise the state minimum wage to $10.50 an hour Jan. 1, 2025 and increase it annually from there for three years to reach $15 an hour Jan. 1, 2028.
On March 27, the Attorney General’s Office received the written petition “Raise the Wage Ohio Amendment,” proposing to increase the minimum wage rate and modify existing requirements for various groups of employees.
The original version of this petition was rejected by the Ohio Attorney General’s Office on Oct. 14, 2022, over summary omissions. The petitioners modified and resubmitted the petition, which was approved by the office on Oct. 28, 2022, but then decided to make additional changes.
The attorney general’s role in the petition process is to determine whether the summary is a fair and truthful representation of the proposed statute. This third version of the petition was determined to have met that requirement.
Next in the process, the Ohio Ballot Board must determine whether the proposal contains a single constitutional amendment or multiple constitutional amendments. If the board certifies the proposal, the petitioners must then collect signatures from registered voters equal to at least 10% of the vote cast in the most recent gubernatorial election. Those signatures must come from voters in at least 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties and, for each of those counties, the number must equal at least 5% of the vote cast in the most recent gubernatorial election.
If sufficient signatures are verified by the Ohio Secretary of State at least 65 days before the election, the full text of the proposed amendment shall be placed on the ballot in the next regular or general election that occurs subsequent to 125 days after the filing of such petition.
The full text of the certification letter and the petition can be found at www.OhioAttorneyGeneral.gov/Petitions.