A federal district judge appointed by President George W. Bush has put the kibosh on a deplorable bid by General Assembly Republicans to make it harder for third parties, such as the Libertarian Party, to field candidates on Ohio’s 2014 ballot.

The obvious aim of the now-stymied scheme contained in Amended Substitute Senate Bill 193 was to reduce the chance that minor parties might sluice votes away from Republican Gov. John Kasich, who is running for re-election. In 2010, Kasich won the governorship by just 77,000 votes.

It’s unclear if Republican dissenters, who think Kasich insufficiently conservative, are as numerous as they are loud. No matter; Kasich’s allies decided to limit any risks by passing S.B. 193, crafted to fetter Libertarian and other minor parties by, in effect, forcing them to requalify for Ohio’s ballot.

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Among other features, the bill would have meant that "nominating petitions already filed by minor party candidates … would be nullified," U.S. District Judge Michael H. Watson wrote; "minor parties [would have to] start from scratch to qualify for [Ohio] ballot access."

In plain English, “the … Legislature moved the proverbial goalpost in the midst of the game,” Watson said. The effect of his preliminary injunction is to suspend S.B. 193 for this election year, and perhaps, depending on further litigation, to kill it.

The measure, sponsored by Sen. William Seitz, a suburban Cincinnati Republican, was sufficiently obnoxious to some other Republicans that it barely passed the General Assembly, though Republicans run the place.

The House, for instance, is 60-39 Republican. But on the Seitz bill’s final roll call, the legislation only drew 51 “yes” votes. And 50 “yes” votes is the bare minimum required to pass a bill in the House. Nine House Republicans, including Reps. Matt Lynch of Chagrin Falls and Kristina Roegner of Hudson, voted “no.” In the Senate, Republican Sens. Randy Gardner of Bowling Green and Kevin Bacon of suburban Columbus, voted “no.”

Given repeated bids by some General Assembly Republicans to make Ohio voters jump through more and more hoops, or to stifle ballot-box competition from minor parties, it appears the Ohio GOP’s copy of Hoyle consists of just one sentence: “Heads we win, tails you lose.” That’s arrogance of a very high order. It’s also, as Watson rightly ruled in this case, grossly unconstitutional.