## Facts

- Citizens of the Village of Willoughby Hills circulated and filed an initiative petition seeking to place a proposed resolution on the municipal ballot.
- The resolution urged the President of the United States to bring American troops home from Vietnam and allow the Vietnamese people to settle their affairs.
- The measure was advisory and nonbinding; it did not enact a municipal ordinance or regulate municipal affairs.
- The Lake County Board of Elections refused to place the proposed resolution on the ballot on the ground that it concerned national foreign policy and military deployment, not municipal legislative matters.
- The relators filed an original action in mandamus in the Supreme Court of Ohio to compel the Board to place the measure on the ballot.

## Issues

1. Whether the Ohio municipal initiative power can be used to submit to voters an advisory resolution addressing national foreign policy and troop deployment, a subject outside a municipality’s legislative authority.
2. Whether mandamus lies to compel a board of elections to place on the ballot a proposed initiative that is not within the municipality’s law-making competence.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Ohio denied the writ of mandamus.
- The court held the proposed resolution was not a proper subject for municipal initiative because it addressed matters outside municipal legislative power.
- Because the measure was beyond municipal competence, the Board had no clear legal duty to place it on the ballot and relators had no clear legal right to compel placement.

## Legal Principles

- The municipal initiative power is limited to legislative measures that a municipality has authority to enact through its law-making body.
- The initiative process does not expand the substantive scope of municipal power; it only provides a method for the electorate to propose legislation within that existing authority.
- Advisory or expressive measures on subjects reserved to the federal government, including foreign policy and military deployment, are not valid subjects for municipal initiative ballots.
- Mandamus requires a clear legal right in the relator and a clear legal duty in the respondent; those elements are absent when the requested ballot measure is outside municipal legislative authority.

## Conclusion

The Supreme Court of Ohio refused to compel ballot placement of an инициативе resolution urging federal action on the Vietnam War, holding that municipal initiatives must be confined to measures within municipal legislative power and that boards of elections need not place ultra vires, advisory proposals on the ballot.


State ex rel. Rhodes v. Bd. of Elections of Lake Cnty., 12 Ohio St. 2d 4, 230 N.E.2d 347 (Ohio 1967)