ResponsibleOhio spending $2M on push for pot

The private-investor group campaigning to legalize marijuana in Ohio in 2015 has spent more than $2 million just this year on its push, more money than has ever been put out on the issue in the Buckeye State.

ResponsibleOhio filed its semi-annual campaign finance report with the secretary of state Friday, a day after dropping off an additional 95,000 signatures in its petition drive to make the Nov. 3 ballot.

Most of the campaign cash spent this year has gone to The Strategy Network, the Columbus political consultancy running the petition campaign. The company is owned by Ian James, who also is executive director of ResponsibleOhio.

The finance reports say of the $2,027,490.57 that ResponsibleOhio has spent just in 2015, $1,858,860.66 went to The Strategy Network. Faith Oltman, ResponsibleOhio’s spokeswoman, said The Strategy Network hired 200 people across Ohio to gather signatures at $11 to $12 an hour.

Other organizations paid as part of the ResponsibleOhio campaign are 270 Strategies, the Chicago data firm known for its work on President Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns, The Kitchens Group, a Maitland, Florida, polling organization, the Columbus law firm of McTigue, McGinnis & Colombo, and Midwest Communications & Media of Columbus.

In 2015, ResponsibleOhio collected $1.675 million from the 20 investors who have pledged to spend as much as $20 million to win in November. In 2014, donations to ResponsibleOhio from its investors totaled $1,728,200 and expenditure $1,293,898.70.

The marijuana movement in Ohio has proposed several options for legalization, but none of them have the financial backing and political infrastructure of ResponsibleOhio.

The group wants voters to approve its proposed Marijuana Legalization Amendment to the Ohio Constitution. The group forecasts that by 2020, a legal marijuana industry in the Buckeye State could be generate $2 billion a year. Eighty-five percent of the tax revenue would go to cities, towns and counties. The balance would pay for the establishment of a Marijuana Control Commission that would oversee the cultivation, processing and sale of marijuana in Ohio.

Under the proposal, individual growers could obtain a $50 state license for the right to grow up to four flowering plants.

But the most controversial aspect of the plan is the limit on cultivation of the commercial crop to 10 farms around Ohio, which now are owned or optioned for purchase by ResponsibleOhio’s investors. Three of the farms are in Hamilton, Butler and Clermont counties.

ResponsibleOhio needs 305,591 signatures of registered Ohio voters to get its proposal on the Nov. 3 ballot. From March until June 30, the group collected 695,273 signatures. But the state’s 88 county boards of elections determined that just 276,082 signatures were valid.

The secretary of state gave ResponsibleOhio a 10-day “cure period” to collect more signatures, and on Thursday evening, the group handed in another 95,572 signatures. The boards of elections will need at least a week to find whether ResponsibleOhio was able to get the necessary 29,509 signatures to qualify for the ballot. In addition, ResponsibleOhio registered more than than 50,000 new voters.

Secretary of State Jon Husted, however, has accused ResponsibleOhio of possible fraud in how the new voters were registered. On Wednesday, Husted appointed a special investigator, former Allen County Prosecutor David Bowers. Husted also subpoenaed James and ResponsibleOhio documents as part of the investigation.

James and ResponsibleOhio say the boards of elections miscounted the petition signatures, and James promised the organization would go to court over the discrepancies. Andy Douglas, a former Ohio Supreme Court justice who now is a legal counsel for ResponsibleOhio, said Husted is trying “to silence us and chill any future opposition” by issuing subpoenas.