Don’t forget
Routine but critical The existing system of redistricting – approved by voters in 2015 and 2018 – is not very effective and needs to be changed.
That’s the opinion of Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican and member of the Ohio Redistricting Commission, as well as numerous Democrats. The commission mapped out the state and congressional districts, which drew criticism.
The group Citizens Not Politicians collected more than enough signatures to put a redistricting amendment on the November 5 ballot, which would put map-drawing power in the hands of a 15-member panel made up of five Republicans, five Democrats and five independents.
That proposal, too, drew criticism, especially from Republicans. DeWine said that under the proposal, proportionality – the voting record of nationwide partisan elections over the past decade, in which about 57% voted Republican and 43% Democrat – “trumps everything else.”
He also says that if the amendment is passed, “Ohio would effectively end up with a system that forces mapmakers to create districts that are gerrymandered. In fact, Ohio would be taking gerrymandering to the extreme.”
Maureen O’Connor, a retired chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court and a Republican who joined three Democratic justices in challenging the constitutionality of seven Republican-drawn maps, said the governor’s disinformation was “an insult to everyone in Ohio.”
The Ohio Ballot Board – a little-known body made up of three Republicans and two Democrats – decides what language voters see on the ballot on statewide issues.
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican and chairman of the panel, and his staff put it this way: The constitutional amendment – which was touted as a proposal to combat gerrymandering – actually encourages gerrymandering.
Predictably, the bill passed 3-2, and just as predictably, Citizens Not Politicians filed a lawsuit in the Ohio Supreme Court to overturn the bill.
Most likely, the court – composed of four Republicans and three Democrats – will essentially retain the wording of the Ohio Ballot Board.
The wording chosen by the Election Board contains 873 words, compared to a 172-word proposal from Citizens Not Politicians.
Among the 10 items on the panel’s ballot is “the establishment of a new taxpayer-funded commission of appointees to manipulate the boundaries of the state’s legislative and congressional districts to favor one of the two major political parties in the state of Ohio.” “Gerrymander” originally meant “to gerrymander” until the panel voted 3-2 to change it.
Citizens Not Politicians’ lawsuit states: “The politicians are fighting back with a veritable barrage of falsehoods. Before the court is possibly the most biased, inaccurate, misleading and unconstitutional ballot language ever adopted by the Ohio Ballot Board. This Court’s intervention is necessary to ensure that Ohio voters are provided with the truthful and impartial ballot titles and ballot language required by law so that they can exercise their right to make a free and informed decision for themselves about whether to amend the Ohio Constitution.”
It continues: “So let’s be completely frank about what is happening here: politicians don’t want to give up power, they oppose the change, and they are abusing their control of the ballot box to influence voters with election language so absurdly biased and misleading that it borders on the comic.”
Republicans insist that the wording on the ballot is correct and that the proposal is a “Democrats’ scam designed to gain political power they cannot gain at the ballot box,” said Garth Kent, a spokesman for the Ohio Senate Majority Caucus.
Kent said, “The big lie from Democrats in Ohio is that Republicans have such large majorities in elected office because of gerrymandering. The state media has believed that wholeheartedly. That’s not just false. It’s demonstrably false. Democrats can’t even win a majority in their own territory. Democrats currently have an advantage in 15 Senate districts in Ohio. However, Republicans have won eight of those districts. If you can’t even win most of the districts where you’re favored, then gerrymandering is not your problem. (Your) problem is obviously your policies, your candidates, or both.”
Kent also pointed out that about 85% of the $23 million Citizens Not Politicians raised in the first half of this year came from out of state.
“This fraudulent campaign does not even have the support of the people of Ohio,” he said. “It is an attempted coup by the Democrats in the swamp of Washington.”
Contact David Skolnick via email at [email protected] Children Don’t forget
Routine, but critical
Childhood vaccines
