Behind the boy-scout demeanor and horn-rimmed glasses of the Louisiana congressman lies a savvy political maneuverer who has fought his way into the most powerful position in Congress. But while Speaker of the U.S. House Mike Johnson may disarm some with his understated friendliness, the Republican from Shreveport is hell-bent on maintaining and expanding one party’s dominance.
To that end, he is gracing Ohio on Tuesday night to headline a fundraiser in Cleveland that supports Republican dominance in Ohio through gerrymandering and supports their upcoming disinformation campaign to prevent a referendum against gerrymandering from appearing on the November ballot. The Citizens’ Initiative to End the Stranglehold of Political Autocracy, manufactured Distorted district maps would replace a Republican-majority redistricting commission with a citizen-led, bipartisan redistricting panel with no political ties.
The “citizens not politicians” addition would exclude career politicians from the process of drawing legislative and congressional districts, as they are known to put their fingers on the scales and draw districts in their favor. That is exactly what the Republican-controlled Ohio Redistricting Commission has done, repeatedly.
Republicans on the redistricting commission, including Governor Mike DeWine, Secretary of State Frank LaRose, Ohio Senate Leader Matt Huffman, and former Ohio House Speaker Bob Cupp (before the latter two quit with other party members), consistently violated voter-approved redistricting amendments to the Ohio Constitution by creating unconstitutional districts designed to keep the GOP in power. Their lawlessness was the last straw for many Ohioans who had called for fair, non-fixed districts.
But contested districts won on ideas (not gerrymandering) are too risky for Republicans who only care about extending their slim majority in the U.S. House of Representatives or maintaining their two-thirds majority in the Ohio Statehouse. Speakers Johnson, DeWine, LaRose and Huffman are terrified of voter-centric redistricting reforms that threaten the political power maintained by gerrymandering.
Johnson and the panicked Republicans in Ohio do not trust the voters, let alone a strong electoral campaign that serves the public interest. They fear a functioning democracy. They cannot imagine the citizens taking their own government into their own hands by creating truly representative, non-partisan electoral districts without predetermined electoral outcomes.
She depend in “safe” districts based on selected population groups to secure guaranteed victories. In Ohio, they prefer subversion to persuasion, and gerrymandering works. Many politicians who practice gerrymandering never face any Opposition at the polls. None. That’s the insidious thing about the districts, which were rigged to protect power – not to control it. Johnson never had to woo voters with better ideas to become a representative or congressman from his “safe” district. The whole thing was rigged. Johnson took power largely unopposed and rose to the Speakership without his zeal as a theocratic extremist ever faltering.
Johnson is a public servant without having to be accountable. He need to be elected, he must answer for himself. The districting is rigged. He is protected from the electoral liabilities that come with a far-right legislator or a congressman who denies the election and plans a coup and who rises to positions of influence because of the power of gerrymandering.
Johnson is not afraid of losing power in his party-rigged constituency. But he and his fellow campaigners in Ohio are scared to death of the people exercising power over them. The speaker’s razor-thin majority in the US House of Representatives and the overwhelming majority of Republicans in Columbus leave on the status quo of party-politically manipulated constituencies that will remain in place forever.
Handing over control of the district’s boundaries to an independent Citizens’ Redistricting Commission — which advocates for fairer districting — is not an option for Republican leaders and architects of Ohio’s unconstitutional districts. They have enlisted the help of a prominent Capitol Hill power broker — himself fond of maintaining gerrymandered districts in his home state — to finance an aggressive attack on Ohio’s initiative to give citizens power over political heavyweights to enforce effective redistricting. for the people.
It’s going to get ugly. Like the dirty campaigns prominent Republicans ran last year against majority voting and abortion access. The governor, election commissioner, and legislative leaders are expected to continue to shamelessly lie when they say that the anti-gerrymandering amendment encourages (not restricts) gerrymandering and that (ironically) only politicians can do truly fair redistricting.
Johnson sings from the same self-serving hymn book. Earlier this year, he called on the Louisiana legislature to ignore a court order (sound familiar?) to create a second black-majority congressional district in the state because it wanted to protect the Republicans’ razor-thin majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. So what if black residents – who make up about a third of Louisiana’s population – have only one black congressman? Fairness and representative equality to increase the voting power of certain groups must take a back seat to maintaining and expanding the dominance of one party. It’s all about control.
That’s why Johnson flew to Ohio to raise money and to appeal to Republicans who are determined to amass power at any cost to the principle of equality of “one person, one vote” that is being nullified by gerrymandering. But the wily Boy Scout and Ohio’s unprincipled GOP hoarders underestimate the people who govern with equal political authority. We have no desire for fools.
That was certainly made abundantly clear by the hundreds of thousands of Ohioans who signed the redistricting amendment to put it on the fall ballot.
