Sometimes legislative proposals sound great on the surface — after all, the people who come up with names such as the “Ohio Property Protection Act” are hoping to persuade others to vote for it. But a deeper dive brings up serious questions.

Ohio House Bill 1 and Senate Bill 88 are similar versions of the Ohio Property Protection Act, which would “modify the law that prohibits certain governments, businesses and individuals from acquiring certain real property.”

Among the stated goals of the bills are to prohibit foreign adversaries from being able to own land within 25 miles of military installations and critical infrastructure. Power, water, transportation facilities … good luck finding property in Ohio that ISN’T within 25 miles of something like that.

In fact, state Sen. Terry Johnson, R-McDermott, admitted to the Ohio Capital Journal that the language was meant to “effectively blanket the entirety of the state of Ohio.”

So, governments, citizens and businesses from countries deemed “foreign adversaries” by the secretary of state would automatically be restricted from buying real property in the Buckeye State. McDermott wanted the bill to be so extreme that it would have also required any current owners subject to the restrictions to sell their land within two years.

Fortunately, members of the state Senate General Government Committee understood the need to remove the forced-sale provisions from the bill, according to the Capital Journal.

Opponents of the bills call them “a symbol for hate,” and “legalized discrimination,” and there is the whiff of those evils about this legislation. But there are other big problems.

Right now, the “foreign adversary” on everyone’s mind is China.

Think about what such a bill would mean for the companies we all said we hoped would pile in around promised developments such as Intel’s. How many of them might have been Chinese?

And, though it seems to be most lawmakers’ focus, this goes beyond China. Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia and the Maduro regime in Venezuela are also listed as foreign adversaries. There are approximately 56 groups on the terrorist exclusion list. Syria joins some of the other countries as a state sponsor of terrorism. And that’s not counting the individuals and entities listed in Presidential Orders 13224 and 13268.

Sure, most people would prefer the entities on those lists aren’t buying up lots of land in Ohio. But, “The Secretary will periodically review this list in consultation with appropriate agency heads and may add to, subtract from, supplement, or otherwise amend this list,” according to the Code of Federal Regulations.

One can understand why these measures make organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union and economic development officials a little nervous.

Perhaps the restrictions on farmland or being too close to military facilities make some sense. But that should be as far as government goes on the matter. Gov. Mike DeWine understood that when he vetoed all but the farm restrictions last time around.

“Restricting ownership of Ohio farmland protects Ohio’s rich agricultural tradition from adverse interests,” DeWine said then. “However, including other non-agricultural real property in this provision could have unintended economic development consequences.”

That remains true. Even if lawmakers are unbothered by some of the other problems with these bills, they MUST understand at least that.