Voters are reportedly flocking to the polls in Ohio today, as part of a drive to enshrine reproductive rights in its constitution. A similar effort could not possibly have happened in Vermont thanks to our paternalistic, top-down system of government.

In case you haven’t heard the story, abortion rights advocates in Ohio mounted a successful petition drive to put a reproductive rights amendment on the state ballot in November. Republicans in control of state government, realizing the amendment was polling very strongly, ginned up their own ballot question to try to derail the November vote. “Issue 1” would raise the bar for constitutional referenda from 50% to 60%. (Last November, Michigan voters approved a reproductive rights amendment with 57% support.) Republicans then scheduled the Issue 1 vote for today in hopes of winning a low-turnout election. But early turnout has been very strong, and it looks like the Republican chicanery won’t work.

Point is, Ohio is on track to hand a stinging defeat to the anti-abortion movement thanks to a governmental process that doesn’t exist in Vermont because our founders decided to protect We, the People from ourselves. They did not create a mechanism for the public to gain access to the ballot.

Regarding reproductive rights, things have worked out just fine in Vermont because the Legislature was like-minded. But what if it wasn’t?

The lack of a petition mechanism is just accepted as fact around here. Having lived most of my life in a state with such a process, I found it surprising if not shocking that it simply didn’t exist in Vermont. Several years ago I was talking with a member of legislative leadership about it, and his response was more than a bit condescending. The attitude was that the people couldn’t be trusted with their own business and needed a check on their impulsiveness.

And sure, there are times when the petition process goes haywire. Conservative organizations have pushed through some heinous stuff through sheer force of financial muscle. But at least it provides the public with some measure of redress.

We didn’t need a petition drive to protect reproductive rights, but I can think of at least two issues where we could definitely use it. For one, legislative redistricting. It’s nice for Democrats that they control the process in Vermont, and they don’t abuse the power to anytinng like the extent Republicans do in states they control. But our system would be fairer if reapportionment were taken out of partisan hands. Now, the Legislature is never, not in a million billion years, going to voluntarily relinquish the power to draw its own boundaries. If we had a petition process, we could pursue a constitutional amendment to put the process in the hands of an independent commission as some other states have done.

Second, ethics in government. Our ethics regime is laughably weak. The Legislature retains a steely grip on its own ethics process, and it has established a state ethics commission with a tiny budget and no power to investigate or enforce the rules. The House and Senate ethics panels rarely meet at all. When they do, it’s behind closed doors. The entire process is shielded from public view. And it’s in the Constitution that the House and Senate are their own keepers. Amendment needed.

Oh, number three. How about an amendment clearly enabling new restrictions on gun ownership and use? That’d stand a really good chance of passing, but the Legislature is too chickenshit to address the issue head-on.

We could also do without the veto power enjoyed by the Legislature and governor over city and town charter changes. Why should they be able to butt in if a municipality wants to change its own laws? We just accept it as the way things are, but frankly it’s ridiculous. And if we really got rolling, maybe we could put some teeth into state campaign finance law, which essentially operates on the honor system.

So c’mon, let’s have a petition process. Oh wait, we’d have to get the Legislature to approve it. Twice.

Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.