Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University. tsuddes@gmail.com
For once, good news for Ohioans from the Statehouse:
An enthusiastic throng, spearheaded by the retired chief justice of Ohio’s Supreme Court – Greater Cleveland Republican Maureen O’Connor — celebrated the submission last week of 731,306 signatures by registered voters backing a proposed Ohio constitutional amendment (the Citizens Not Politicians plan) to stymie the rigging of General Assembly and Ohio’s U.S. House districts to benefit one party over another.
The Citizens Not Politicians proposal would create a new, nonpartisan and independent commission to draw those districts, a panel that would prevent current or former politicians and lobbyists from manipulating district lines.
Said the GOP’s O’Connor, who repeatedly voted against gerrymandering when she was chief justice of the Supreme Court, “With today’s signature turn-in, we move one giant step closer to ensuring that the citizens decide who serves [in the Statehouse and U.S. House], not the politicians who just scheme and rig the game to stay in power. This constitutional amendment will restore power to Ohio citizens and take it away from the self-serving politicians and their lobbyist friends and big-money donors.”
What would change anti-gerrymandering amendment passes
If at least 413,487 of the signatures submitted last week are determined valid by the secretary of state and Ohio’s county Boards of Elections, the petitions would place on November’s ballot a Ohio Constitution amendment creating an independent commission – composed of rank-and-file citizens, not politicians – to fairly draw districts.
According to Citizens Not Politicians, similar panels have been created in seven states: Michigan (the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission), Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana and Washington state.
How does redistricting work now
Ohio’s General Assembly and congressional districts are now drawn by a panel composed of partisan elected officials who deliberately craft boundaries to favor whichever party has control of the panel. Beginning in 1991, and continuing today, Republicans have controlled districting (“apportionment”) of the General Assembly and have mapped districts accordingly.
Result: In an Ohio that twice supported Bill Clinton and Barack Obama for the presidency, which beginning in 2007 has elected a Democrat as one of its two U.S. senators (Sherrod Brown, of Cleveland), and which in 2006 elected a Democratic governor (Ted Strickland), the 99-member Ohio House of Representatives is now composed of 67 Republicans to 32 Democrats, the 33-member Ohio Senate is composed of 26 Republicans to seven Democrats.
And Ohio’s 15-member U.S. House delegation is composed of 10 Republicans (including Rep. Mike Carey, of Columbus), and five Democrats (including Rep. Joyce Beatty, of Columbus).
Ohio has an autocracy
Those statistics don’t represent democracy, but one-party autocracy. And it leads to political extremism because General Assembly contests are often decided in GOP primaries, where rivals may aim to “out-right” each other, potentially leading to the election of off-the-charts demagogues. If you doubt that, watch televised proceedings of Congress and the General Assembly
As an example of congressional gerrymandering by Ohio’s GOP insiders to favor the GOP, consider the geographical absurdity that is the 6th Congressional District, which stretches from Youngstown to Marietta (at least 164 miles, Google maps says), whose U.S. House member is newly elected Rep. Michael Rulli, a Salem Republican.
The 6th District is almost a latter-day caricature of the 1812 Massachusetts “gerrymandering” (named for that state’s then-Gov. Elbridge Gerry), an adherent of that era’s Democratic-Republican Party, boosting his party’s seats in the Massachusetts state Senate.
Bloated GOP majorities at the Statehouse have been drunk on power, for example repeatedly trying to limit women’s access to abortion in an Ohio whose voters last year – with a 57% “yes” vote – upheld abortion rights. Meanwhile, as an index of out-of-kilter priorities, the State Board of Education is begging for operating funds even as legislators devote committee- and floor time taking off after LGBTQ Ohioans.
The Citizens Not Politicians event with O’Connor at the Statehouse last week demonstrated wide-spectrum enthusiasm for the proposed fair-districts plan, something that, if voters agree, will empower everyday Ohioans at the expense of Capitol Square insiders, who’ve made the General Assembly what it now is – a pep rally for special interests rather than a place that serves and answers to all Ohioans.
Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University. tsuddes@gmail.com
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Democracy is not working in Ohio. One party rule must be reversed.
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