COLUMBUS, Ohio — A campaign to change Ohio’s term-limit laws for state lawmakers took a step forward Monday, as the leader of the Ohio Senate harshly criticized the proposal.

The Ohio Ballot Board voted 4-1 to approve the proposed constitutional amendment, which would set a 16-year lifetime cap on service in the state legislature, certifying it as a single issue. The campaign, which calls itself Ohioans for Legislative Term Limits, is targeting the November ballot, meaning it has until July to collect 442,958 voter signatures from 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties.

Ohio Senate President Larry Obhof, a Republican ballot board member who is leaving office at the end of the year due to term limits, cast the lone dissenting vote.

He said the measure contains contradictory provisions. In one sense, it strengthens term limits by creating a lifetime cap, he said. But in another sense, it gives a 16-year extension to current lawmakers, since it will reset the clock starting in 2021 for those re-elected this November.

He said the measure should be split in two — a lifetime cap, which he said he thinks would gather popular support, and a reset of the clock for current lawmakers, which he said likely would not.

“I’m not sure why they’re jammed together, other than to convince voters to extend time by 16 years by making them think they’re voting for a new limitation,” Obhof said.

Under current law, passed as a citizen-led constitutional amendment in 1992, state lawmakers are barred from serving more than eight consecutive years in either the Ohio House or Senate. But some lawmakers have managed to stick around, since the law allows them to switch chambers.

The new proposal would end that practice by setting the lifetime cap. It also would allow someone to serve in a single chamber for a longer period of time, since the new proposal would let someone serve for up to 16 years in either the House or Senate. This could have the effect of reducing contentious leadership fights, which at times have broken out under current term limits rules when a term-limited legislative leader has been forced to leave their chamber.

The backers of the term-limit campaign have not made themselves known. Some elements point to organized labor or Democratic backing, though.

The campaign hired Fieldworks, a political petition firm that largely works with Democrats, to collect the initial batch of signatures it submitted in its initial filing through the state’s citizen referendum process.

Don McTigue, a prominent elections-law attorney in Columbus who works with Democrats, has filed the paperwork on behalf of the group and appeared on its behalf before the ballot board in Columbus on Monday.

And one of its three committee members is Brian Steel, a Columbus police officer who holds a leadership position with the Columbus Fraternal Order of Police.

McTigue on Monday declined to say who is behind the term-limits proposal.

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