State Republicans were very interested in adding to the voter-approved marijuana law.
This story was republished with permission from Crain’s Cleveland Business and written by Kim Palmer.
Ohio voters last week supported a constitutional amendment guaranteeing basic abortion rights and a law allowing the legal use of recreational marijuana.
Some Republican state lawmakers quickly went on the record pushing back against the measures, vowing to use legislative oversight and powers to upend or ignore the changes. A new poll shows this sentiment has a fair amount of support among GOP legislators.
A post-election poll conducted by Gongwer-Werth asked legislators whether they supported attempts to impede the implementation of measures passed in the Nov. 7 election.
Asked if they would “support putting a constitutional amendment restricting abortion on a future statewide ballot,” every Democratic respondent answered “no,” while the Republicans who answered favored a new amendment attempt by 48%. A bit under 30% of those Republicans answered “no,” and 24% said they were “undecided.”
The idea of repealing recreational marijuana has no support among Democratic legislators, while 20% of Republicans answered “yes” to the idea of trying to thwart the measure. Sixty-four percent of Republicans said “no,” while 16% were undecided.
Republican respondents were very interested – at 76% – in supporting “restrictions on the marijuana law approved by voters.” Only 16% were not interested in “tweaking” the law, as Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine described his post-election plans to reporters after the election.
Less than 10% of Democrats in the poll supported new restrictions.
There was a little more bipartisan agreement when it came to supporting a change to tax rates for recreational marijuana. A combined 50% of all those surveyed were open to the idea. More than half (54%) of the Democrats said they were undecided, along with 20% of Republicans.
At 68%, the Republicans who have a supermajority in the Statehouse looked poised to make some changes in the tax rate, which now mimics that of alcohol in the state.
The Gongwer-Werth legislative opinion poll is based on answers from about 40 legislators from Nov. 9 to 12.
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