Buckeye Reporter

The Washington DC based dark money group, the Sixteen Thirty Fund, contributed 2.5 million dollars to One Person One Vote, the group driving the "vote no on Issue 1" campaign. The Sixteen Thirty Fund has spent millions in past cycles on ballot initiatives in other states supporting abortion, opposing gun rights, among other issues. 

Issue 1, a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot in a special election Aug. 8, will help to strengthen Ohio's constitution, Republican lawmakers said in a release posted to Twitter. In addition to requiring 60% voter approval, the measure would require signatures gathered to support amendments to include voters from all 88 of Ohio's counties and restrict "do-overs" on signature submissions, which would give signature-gatherers one chance to properly obtain signatures for a proposed amendment.

According to their website, the Sixteen Thirty Fund was established in 2009 and is currently operating in all 50 states.

Campaign disclosure forms released by Ohio's Secretary of State shows that the Washington DC based group contributed $2.5 million to One Person One Vote.

As previously reported by the Buckeye Reporter, One Person One Vote, the group driving opposition to Issue 1, has raised $14.8 million. 84% of total funding came from out of state.

According to Ballotpedia, the Sixteen Thirty Fund supported Oregon's Measure 114, during the 2022 campaign cycle.

Measure 114 passed in the state of Oregon with 50.65% of the vote, a margin of fewer than 25,000 votes of the over two million total votes cast. Due to Oregon's 50% threshold to pass initiatives, Measure 114 would be the current law in Oregon if not for a number of legal challenges over the measure's constitutionality. According to a previous report from Buckeye Reporter, Measure 114 would ban magazines with more than a 10-round capacity and would require permitting to purchase and transfer firearms.

The National Rifle Association's Institute for Legal Action called measure 114 "the nation's most extreme gun control initiative," and found that under Measure 114 gun owner's personal information would be collected in a government registry and that this data would be published annually.

Ballotpedia also notes that the Sixteen Thirty Fund was active in opposing Oregon's Measure 106 in 2018. Outside of Planned Parenthood and it's associated organizations, the group was the second highest contributor to the opposition campaign.

Measure 106 would have prohibited public funds from being spent on abortions, except when medically necessary or required by federal law. These exemptions included instances of rape, incest, and case in which the life of the mother would be threatened by carrying the pregnancy to term. Measure 106 was defeated by a 64.48% to 35.52% vote in the November 2018 midterms.

According to a Statesman Journal report, 65% of the funding opposing Measure 106 came from out of state. The report notes that "much of that money" came from Planned Parenthood groups from regions "including New York, Illinois, Michigan, Virginia and the Pacific Northwest."

The Sixteen Thirty Fund was also involved in defeating propositions and amendments to restrict abortion in Kentucky and Kansas in 2022.

Supporters of Issue 1 claim that it 1 would diminish the influence of outside groups when it comes to amending Ohio's founding document. Last month Ohio Senate Majority Leader Rob McColley (R-Napoleon) told the Buckeye Reporter, "[f]rom the casino amendment in 2009 to the failed recreational marijuana amendment in 2015, wealthy out of state business interests have showed there is no limit to their greed and that they would spend whatever amount necessary to clear Ohio’s uncommonly low threshold for constitutional amendments.”