Ohio Food, Resource, and Commodity Assurance Act, Ballot Language

OHIO FOOD, RESOURCE, AND COMMODITY ASSURANCE ACT Scarcity is a Policy Choice

Filed with the Ohio Attorney General For certification and submission to the General Assembly

Signature Requirement (Initial Filing): 126,041 valid signatures (Three per cent of the total votes cast for governor at the November 8, 2022 general election, which totaled 4,201,368. Signatures must be collected from at least forty-four (44) of Ohio's eighty-eight (88) counties, with no fewer than one and one-half per cent (1.5%) of the electorate from each county counted.)

PROCESS: This is an INDIRECT INITIATIVE under Article II, Section 1a of the Ohio Constitution. Upon collection and certification of 126,041 valid signatures, the proposed statute is submitted to the General Assembly, which has four (4) months to act. If the General Assembly rejects or fails to act on the proposal, petitioners collect an additional 126,041 signatures (total: 252,082) and the proposed statute is placed on the ballot at the next general election.

PRECEDENT: Ohio voters demonstrated the vitality of the citizen initiative process in November 2023, when Issue 1, a citizen-initiated constitutional amendment, passed with 56.8 percent of the vote, despite a prior attempt by the legislature to raise the amendment threshold.

BALLOT TITLE

SHALL THE STATE OF OHIO ENACT THE OHIO FOOD, RESOURCE, AND COMMODITY ASSURANCE ACT, AND, IN CONNECTION THEREWITH:

    (1) CREATING AN OHIO FOOD ASSURANCE PROGRAM OPERATED BY THE
    DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE TO SELL GROCERY PRODUCTS AT AT-COST
    PRICING (PRODUCTION COST PLUS A FACILITY SURCHARGE NOT EXCEEDING
    5%) TO ALL OHIO RESIDENTS THROUGH STATE-OPERATED FOOD ASSURANCE
    CENTERS, WITH NOT FEWER THAN EIGHT PILOT CENTERS WITHIN TWO YEARS
    (INCLUDING ONE IN THE DAYTON AREA ADJACENT TO THE WRIGHT-PATTERSON
    AIR FORCE BASE COMMISSARY THAT HAS SERVED MILITARY FAMILIES AT
    BELOW-RETAIL PRICES FOR DECADES WHILE OHIO CIVILIANS WERE DENIED
    ACCESS, AND ONE IN THE YOUNGSTOWN-WARREN METROPOLITAN AREA
    ANCHORING THE BLACK MONDAY DEINDUSTRIALIZATION HEARTLAND, AND ONE
    IN APPALACHIAN OHIO), AND TWENTY-FIVE CENTERS STATEWIDE WITHIN
    FIVE YEARS, MODELED ON THE 159-YEAR MILITARY COMMISSARY PRECEDENT
    (10 U.S.C. SECTION 2484);

    (2) ESTABLISHING OHIO-FIRST PROCUREMENT FOR THE FOOD ASSURANCE
    PROGRAM AT FIFTY PERCENT (50%) OHIO-SOURCED WITHIN THREE YEARS,
    INCREASING TO SEVENTY PERCENT (70%) WITHIN FIVE YEARS, AND
    AUTHORIZING THE PROGRAM TO ACCEPT ALL FORMS OF PAYMENT INCLUDING
    CASH, EBT, SNAP, AND WIC;

    (3) CREATING AN OHIO ESSENTIAL GOODS PROGRAM OPERATED BY THE
    DEPARTMENT OF DEVELOPMENT TO PRODUCE AND DISTRIBUTE CLOTHING,
    HOUSEHOLD SUPPLIES, HYGIENE PRODUCTS, TOOLS, EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS,
    AND OTHER ESSENTIAL GOODS AT BELOW-RETAIL PRICING (PRODUCTION
    COST PLUS A SURCHARGE NOT EXCEEDING 10%), USING OHIO'S EXISTING
    MANUFACTURING INFRASTRUCTURE AND WORKFORCE WHEREVER PRACTICABLE
    TO REBUILD PRODUCTIVE CAPACITY THAT DEINDUSTRIALIZATION IDLED;

    (4) APPROPRIATING NINETY MILLION DOLLARS ($90,000,000) FROM THE
    GENERAL REVENUE FUND FOR THE BIENNIUM BEGINNING JULY 1, 2027
    ($70,000,000 TO THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOR THE FOOD
    ASSURANCE PROGRAM AND $20,000,000 TO THE DEPARTMENT OF DEVELOPMENT
    FOR THE ESSENTIAL GOODS PROGRAM), REPRESENTING APPROXIMATELY 0.20
    PERCENT OF OHIO'S FY2027 GENERAL REVENUE FUND OF APPROXIMATELY
    $46.1 BILLION (Ohio HB 96 OF THE 136TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY AS
    ENACTED; ZHF CONSULTING, JULY 2025), WITH THE FULL DIVISION I
    HORIZON OF $309 PER RESIDENT PER YEAR (APPROXIMATELY $3.678
    BILLION ANNUALLY, 8.0 PERCENT OF FY2027 GRF) APPROACHED
    INCREMENTALLY AS THE PILOT CENTERS DEMONSTRATE OPERATIONAL
    PERFORMANCE AND AS VOLUME SURCHARGES BUILD TOWARD SELF-SUFFICIENCY?

SUBMISSION CLAUSE

    [ ] YES / FOR THE MEASURE

    [ ] NO / AGAINST THE MEASURE

BALLOT TEXT

This measure enacts new sections of the Ohio Revised Code (Title 9, sections 901.90 through 901.99 and 122.90 through 122.99) to create the Ohio Food, Resource, and Commodity Assurance Act, organized as Division I:

DIVISION I, FOOD AND COMMODITY ASSURANCE

This division enacts sections 901.90 to 901.99 and 122.90 to 122.99 of the Revised Code, creating:

    OHIO FOOD ASSURANCE PROGRAM (sections 901.90-901.99). The Ohio
    Department of Agriculture operates state-operated food distribution
    centers where all Ohio residents may purchase the full range of
    grocery products at at-cost pricing (production cost plus a facility
    surcharge not exceeding 5%).

    PILOT CENTERS (within two years of effective date): two in the
    Columbus metropolitan area, one each in Cleveland, Cincinnati,
    Dayton (adjacent to Wright-Patterson AFB), Toledo, Youngstown-Warren,
    and one in Appalachian Ohio (Athens, Marietta, Zanesville, or
    Chillicothe).

    THE DAYTON CENTER is deliberately placed near Wright-Patterson Air
    Force Base. The Defense Commissary Agency has operated a
    below-retail grocery at Wright-Patterson for decades, funded by all
    taxpayers, accessible only to military families. The civilian food
    assurance center demonstrates that what works for military families
    works for all Ohio families.

    THE YOUNGSTOWN-WARREN CENTER acknowledges that Black Monday,
    September 19, 1977, the closure of the Campbell Works, destroyed
    50,000 jobs in the Mahoning Valley within five years and gave
    birth to the Rust Belt. The community that paid the highest price
    for deindustrialization will be among the first to see the state
    invest in rebuilding.

    EXPANSION to twenty-five statewide centers within five years, with
    at least one center per congressional district and at least five
    centers serving rural Appalachian communities.

    OHIO-FIRST PROCUREMENT: 50 percent Ohio-sourced within three
    years, increasing to 70 percent within five years.

    OHIO ESSENTIAL GOODS PROGRAM (sections 122.90-122.99). The Ohio
    Department of Development produces and distributes clothing,
    household supplies, hygiene products, tools, educational materials,
    and other essential goods at below-retail pricing (production
    cost plus a surcharge not exceeding 10%), using Ohio's existing
    manufacturing infrastructure to rebuild productive capacity that
    deindustrialization idled.

EVIDENTIARY BASIS: The USDA ERS Food Dollar Series establishes the farm share of the food dollar at 24.3 cents, with 75.7 cents in markup. The U.S. military commissary system has operated at-cost food distribution for 159 years under 10 U.S.C. Section 2484. Ohio's agricultural cash receipts of $15.4 billion (2022) vastly exceed its population's food requirements. Approximately 1,408,693 Ohioans receive SNAP benefits, bringing $3.18 billion per year into the state through commercial retailers that charge 75.7 cents on the dollar in markup. The state currently spends approximately $3.18 billion annually on SNAP benefits distributed through a system where three-quarters of every dollar pays for permission, not food. At-cost routing delivers approximately four times the food value per benefit dollar.

COOPER'S FACTORY PROOF: 293,000 U.S. manufacturing establishments, 19.5-29.3x overcapacity, 77 percent capacity utilization (Cooper, "The Mathematics of Abundance," 2025). Ohio is where this proof lives. Ohio was the factory. Akron, Cleveland, Toledo, Dayton, Youngstown, Cincinnati: industrial heartland. Shuttered not because they failed but because finance decided they were more profitable elsewhere (Veblen, "The Engineers and the Price System," 1921).

HISTORICAL ANCHOR: Augustus formalized the annona civica around 27 BC, feeding approximately 200,000 Roman citizens at state expense for more than 400 years (Suetonius; Cassius Dio). Suetonius records, in Life of Augustus 27, that Augustus, having noticed a Roman knight named Pinarius taking notes during a public assembly, ordered that he be stabbed on the spot. Even Augustus, who would have a man killed for taking notes in the wrong room, understood that hungry citizens are broken infrastructure. The annona was not charity. It was engineering. Emperor Nerva expanded the program through the alimenta: state-funded rural loans whose interest payments funded child nutrition (Cassius Dio). The Tabula Alimentaria from Veleia (CIL XI 1147), cataloged in bronze, can still be visited at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Parma.

CLOSING EVIDENTIARY BASIS, PUBLIC HEALTH: Sir Michael Marmot's Whitehall Studies (1967 to present, 10,308 British civil servants with universal healthcare and full employment) established that the lowest employment grade experienced three times the mortality rate of the highest grade, with standard risk factors explaining less than 40 percent of the gradient. Robert Sapolsky's baboon studies demonstrated that subordinate social position causes elevated cortisol, atherosclerosis, and immune suppression, with biology normalizing when the hierarchy collapses. Carol Shively's macaque studies traced cardiovascular disease through cingulate cortex serotonin disruption. Elizabeth Blackburn (2009 Nobel Prize) demonstrated that chronic stress shortens telomeres. The gap is the gradient. Hierarchy itself kills. The Ohio opioid crisis (Dayton and Montgomery County among the most affected jurisdictions during the mid-2010s opioid mortality peak; Ohio overdose mortality continuing to decline through preliminary 2025 CDC SUDORS surveillance) is the biological proof at state scale: when deindustrialization stripped status from entire Ohio communities in a single generation, the biological response was exactly what Marmot, Sapolsky, Shively, and Blackburn predicted. The opioid was the self-medication for a biological crisis caused by economic subordination. The food and commodity assurance program addresses the documented physiological problem, not a moral or charitable one.

THE UNIVERSE 25 REBUTTAL: John B. Calhoun's Universe 25 experiment (1968-1973) is frequently cited as proof that abundance leads to collapse. Calhoun provided mice with exactly four things, food, water, nesting material, and physical space, and called it paradise. That is not abundance. That is inventory. The military commissary at Wright-Patterson has operated material abundance to military communities for 159 years without behavioral collapse, because it pairs material provision with the full institutional infrastructure: healthcare, education, housing, family support, chaplain services. The military is Universe 25 with institutional infrastructure. And it works. The argument that abundance fails is refuted by the operational record on Ohio soil.

THE BOWLES-GINTIS CORRECTION (Cooper, Paper V, 2025): Bowles and Gintis named the right disease at the wrong site. Stratification is the ocean, not the cup. The gradient is the disease; targeting any single institution misses the structural mechanism. The corrected critique aims at the gradient itself, where four independent research programs over six decades and three species have located the damage.

THE COMPANION OHIO EDUCATION MODERNIZATION BILL, filed separately, carries the K-20 developmental pipeline, The Vitruvian Quotient framework, the structured-learning-trial methodology, the public service requirement, the Ohio resource library, and the constitutional anchor under Article VI Section 2 of the Ohio Constitution and the DeRolph v. State litigation sequence. This ballot does not enact the Education bill. This ballot enacts only the food and commodity assurance program.

GENERAL PROVISIONS

APPROPRIATION:

    Department of Agriculture (food assurance):       $70,000,000
    Department of Development (essential goods):      $20,000,000
    TOTAL BIENNIAL APPROPRIATION:                     $90,000,000

    This total represents approximately 0.20 percent of Ohio's FY2027
    General Revenue Fund of approximately $46.1 billion (Ohio HB 96
    of the 136th General Assembly as enacted; ZHF Consulting, July
    2025). The full Division I horizon of $309 per resident per year,
    approximately $3.678 billion annually for Ohio's population of
    11.9 million, would represent approximately 8.0 percent of FY2027
    GRF and is approached incrementally as the pilot centers
    demonstrate operational performance and as volume surcharges build
    toward self-sufficiency.

EFFECTIVE DATES:

    Division I (Food and Essential Goods): July 1, 2027. Pilot centers
    operational within two years. Statewide expansion within five
    years.

SEVERABILITY: If any provision is held invalid, remaining provisions continue in effect.

EMERGENCY CLAUSE: This Act is declared necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, and safety.

PROPONENT STATEMENT

This initiative proposes the most straightforward state-level reform of food distribution in Ohio's legislative history: extend to all Ohio civilians the at-cost grocery model that the United States military has operated continuously since 1867, including at the Defense Commissary Agency facility at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton.

THE PROBLEM: Ohio generates $15.4 billion in agricultural cash receipts annually, yet 1,408,693 Ohioans receive SNAP benefits. The USDA documents that 75.7 cents of every food dollar pays for markup, not food. The military commissary at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base has distributed food at below-retail prices to military families for decades, but the Ohio taxpayers who fund it are denied access.

Thirty-two of Ohio's eighty-eight counties carry Appalachian Regional Commission designation. In these counties, food deserts, healthcare deserts, and education deserts converge in the same geography. Meanwhile, NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland builds propulsion for interplanetary spacecraft. Ohio builds technology for Mars while 32 Appalachian Ohio counties cannot consistently feed their residents.

On September 19, 1977, the Campbell Works steel mill in Youngstown closed without warning. Within five years, 50,000 jobs vanished from the Mahoning Valley. Akron lost its tire industry. Cleveland lost its steel. Lordstown GM Assembly closed in 2019 after 53 years of operation. The factories worked. They were closed. The capacity still exists.

THE PROPOSAL: A single program operating two related lines of distribution:

    1. FOOD ASSURANCE at production cost plus a 5 percent facility
       surcharge, modeled on the 159-year U.S. military commissary
       precedent and operated by the Ohio Department of Agriculture.
       50 percent Ohio-sourced within three years, rising to 70
       percent within five years.

    2. ESSENTIAL GOODS at production cost plus a 10 percent surcharge,
       operated by the Ohio Department of Development through Ohio
       manufacturing partnerships, rebuilding productive capacity
       that deindustrialization idled.

The companion Ohio Education Modernization bill, filed separately, addresses the developmental infrastructure that compresses the gradient across generations. This ballot enacts only food and commodity assurance.

THE COST: $90 million biennial appropriation, 0.20 percent of the state's $46.1 billion FY2027 General Revenue Fund. Ohio currently distributes $3.18 billion annually in SNAP benefits routed through commercial retailers. At-cost pricing delivers approximately four times the food value per benefit dollar. The food assurance program is designed to achieve operational self-sufficiency within seven years through volume surcharges. The full Division I horizon of $309 per resident per year, approximately $3.678 billion annually or 8.0 percent of FY2027 GRF, is approached incrementally as pilot centers demonstrate operational performance.

AS OHIO GOES, SO GOES THE NATION: Ohio has functioned as a bellwether of American politics for over a century. If this proposal passes in Ohio, the state where the factories closed, where the Rust Belt was born, it becomes a national model. Ohio carries the political gravity to shift the Overton window. The proof model is at Wright-Patterson. The science is sixty years deep. The factories worked. They were closed. The people suffered. The capacity still exists. The only thing missing is the vote. Denial is no longer neutral.

Version 2. Originally drafted 2015-2016 (Imran Stanton Cooper, Colorado conception, Sassafras and Maple Research Foundation). Ohio adaptation March 5, 2026. Option B re-pass May 24, 2026.

FISCAL IMPACT SUMMARY

(Prepared pursuant to Ohio Revised Code Section 3519.01 et seq.)

INITIAL BIENNIAL APPROPRIATION: $90,000,000 from the General Revenue Fund for the biennium beginning July 1, 2027.

PERCENTAGE OF GRF: 0.20 percent of approximately $46.1 billion FY2027 General Revenue Fund (Ohio HB 96 of the 136th General Assembly as enacted; ZHF Consulting, July 2025).

BREAKDOWN:

    Food Assurance Program (Dept. of Agriculture):  $70,000,000
    Essential Goods Program (Dept. of Development): $20,000,000

PROJECTED ONGOING COSTS:

    Food assurance operations: Estimated $50-70 million annually
    during expansion phase (years 3-7), declining toward
    self-sufficiency through volume surcharges as pilot centers
    demonstrate operational performance and procurement volume scales.

    Essential goods operations: Estimated $15-25 million annually
    during expansion phase, with the same trajectory toward
    self-sufficiency through the 10 percent surcharge.

PROJECTED SAVINGS:

    SNAP efficiency: At-cost pricing delivers approximately 4x food
    value per benefit dollar, reducing effective SNAP expenditure.
    Ohio currently distributes $3.18 billion annually through
    retailers charging 75.7 percent markup.

    Healthcare cost reduction: Improved nutrition and reduced
    hierarchy stress are projected to offset program costs within
    a decade, based on Marmot's documentation of hierarchy-related
    healthcare utilization and Case & Deaton's documentation of
    despair-mortality pathways.

    Federal SNAP cost-shift offset: H.R. 1 (2025) raises the state
    share of SNAP administrative costs from 50 percent to 75 percent
    effective October 1, 2026. At-cost routing through Division I
    independently delivers approximately a 3.9-fold increase in
    delivered food value per SNAP dollar, offsetting the federal
    cost-shift.

FULL DIVISION I HORIZON:

    $309 per Ohio resident per year (USDA Food Dollar Series
    methodology applied to a 25-item base list of staple foods at
    30 percent of cheapest retail price) x 11,900,000 residents =
    approximately $3.678 billion per year. Approximately 8.0
    percent of FY2027 GRF. This horizon is approached incrementally
    as pilot centers prove operational performance; the $90 million
    biennial starter appropriation seeds the pilot scale described
    in section 901.93 of the Revised Code.

CONTEXT:

    Ohio's all-funds operating budget: approximately $100.4 billion
    FY2026 / $102.4 billion FY2027 (City of Green analysis April
    2025; LSC Budget in Brief).
    Ohio's General Revenue Fund: approximately $44.4 billion FY2026
    / $46.1 billion FY2027 (Ohio HB 96 as enacted; ZHF Consulting,
    July 2025).
    Ohio SNAP distribution: approximately $3.18 billion annually
    (FRAC SNAP State Fact Sheet, February 2025).
    Total biennial appropriation as share of FY2027 GRF: 0.20%

OHIO'S BIENNIAL BUDGET ADVANTAGE: Ohio is one of only four states that budgets on a two-year cycle. A full pilot cycle for food assurance centers can be built into a single budget window, an implementation advantage no annual-budget state possesses.

SIGNATURE LINES

We, the undersigned registered electors of the State of Ohio, do hereby propose by initiative petition, pursuant to Article II, Section 1a of the Ohio Constitution, the following law for submission to the General Assembly and, if the General Assembly fails to adopt it within four (4) months, for submission to the electors of the State of Ohio at the next general election:

Print Name: ___________________________________________

Signature: ____________________________________________

Address: ______________________________________________

Date: ___________________

County of Residence: __________________________________

(Repeat as needed; 126,041 valid signatures required for initial filing with the General Assembly; an additional 126,041 required if the General Assembly fails to act within four months, for a total of 252,082 to place on the ballot.)

END OF BALLOT LANGUAGE

OHIO FOOD, RESOURCE, AND COMMODITY ASSURANCE ACT Citizen Initiative Petition Pursuant to Article II, Section 1a, Ohio Constitution

Prepared by: The Amanuensis, theamanuensis.com Version 2. Originally drafted 2015-2016 (Imran Stanton Cooper, Colorado conception, Sassafras and Maple Research Foundation). Ohio adaptation: March 5, 2026. Option B re-pass: May 24, 2026.

"Black Monday was September 19, 1977. The commissary at Wright-Patterson has been open every day since. The factories worked. They were closed. The people suffered. The proof model is already here. As Ohio goes, so goes the nation."

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