DEAR EDITOR:

You are to be commended for adding a third page of opinion to your Sunday edition, but one of your inaugural columns, that of state Rep. Brian Stewart, R-Ashville, purporting to defend the integrity of the Ohio Constitution, could have easily appeared in the comic pages.

He worries the Ohio Constitution is susceptible to abuse by an amendment process that has been in place for a century. Ohio voters haven’t loaded down the constitution with frivolous amendments passed by a razor-thin 50-percent-plus-one-vote margin.

The bigger danger to the integrity of the Ohio Constitution is Stewart and his merry band of Republican scofflaws who steadfastly refused to abide by the clearly stated will of Ohioans who passed Issue 1 in 2018. The amendment, passed with 74.85 percent voting in favor, clearly stated the will of Stewart’s constituents that Ohio not gerrymander its congressional districts. Yet we watched last year as Republicans did everything they could to avoid honoring that. They defied an Ohio Supreme Court ruling that found their maps illegal. Then they placed a winning bet that while Chief Justice Maureen O’Conner — a principled conservative Republican — was willing to find that they violated the Constitution, she would not take the next step and find them in contempt of court.

They ran out the clock and got the unconstitutional maps they wanted.

And now Stewart tells us he wants to preserve the integrity of the Ohio Constitution.

Stewart was given a quarter of a page to make his case. Yet with all that space, he never even hinted at what he and his colleagues really are worried about. That is, if a majority of the voters of Ohio are given an opportunity to overturn the Republicans’ draconian anti-abortion measures, they will do so. Most Ohioans support a woman’s right to choose. And the last thing Republicans want is a simple majority to have a voice on the GOP’s forced-birth policies.

If members of the Legislature can be elected with a simple majority (or even a plurality in races with more than two candidates), Ohioans shouldn’t need a super majority to challenge the undemocratic actions of a gerrymandered General Assembly.

DENNIS B. MANGAN

Howland