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Petition for a Constitutional Amendment on the ‘Prohibition of Construction of a Data Center’ is filed by the Ohio Attorney General
On March 26th Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announced in a press release that his office is advancing a petition for a constitutional amendment to prohibit the construction of data centers in the state.
The Ohio Attorney General’s Office today certified the petition title and summary for a proposed constitutional amendment titled “Prohibition of Construction of a Data Center,” which seeks to add Section 36a to Article II of the Ohio Constitution.
The petition was submitted on March 16.
“The title and summary are fair and truthful statements of the proposed initiated constitutional amendment,” the response letter sent to the petitioners said. This certification “should not be construed as an affirmation of the enforceability and constitutionality of the proposed amendment.”
As the next step in the process, the Ohio Attorney General’s Office will file a verified copy of the constitutional amendment and its certification with the Ohio Secretary of State’s Office. 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 Secretary of State’s Office at least 65 days before the election, the full text of the proposed amendment will be placed on the ballot in the next regular or general election that occurs subsequent to 125 days after the filing of the petition.
The full text of the certification letter and the petition can be found here.
