When the Republicans in the legislature who controlled Ohio’s Congressional redistricting process this year suddenly tossed their map on the table in late September and announced it would be on the floor for a vote in 48 hours, it was clear to most observers that they had violated every tenet of fair district drawing.
It carved out 12 safe Republican districts and four safe Democratic districts in a state whose vote splits close to 50/50 in every election. It created not one single genuinely competitive district. And it split almost every one of the state’s major urban areas into three or four impotent shards, assuring that their interests would be radically underrepresented, never mind that about 3/4ths of the state’s population is urban. It’s difficult to describe the travesties of districts that spit counties, cities, school districts, towns, townships, villages, wards, and even precincts, that meander for 933 miles in one case and link two disparate urban areas with uninhabited beaches in another.
It was clear that the Republican pretense of listening to citizen input at hearings across the state was nothing but a charade, as was the website Draw The Line Ohio, where members of the public could submit maps drawn to specifications such as keeping communities of interest together, not splitting counties more than necessary, and making districts as competitive as possible.
Today we learned just how enormous of a charade they were. This isn’t just gerrymandering, it isn’t even gerrymandering on steroids — it’s in a different dimension altogether.
http://www.moneyinpoliticsohio.org/...
Prepare to be sickened. This report, titled the Elephant in the Room, was released today by a coalition of groups calling themselves the Ohio Campaign for Accountable Redistricting. The lead groups were the League of Women Voters of Ohio and Ohio Citizen Action.
If you don’t want to slog through the whole thing, Progress Ohio gives you a nice summary here: http://www.progressohio.org/...
It should make every nice League of Women Voters lady who testified at one of those hearings feel like a sap. Based on documents acquired through public records request, it details how the map was drawn in complete secrecy guided by the unseen hand of John Boehner. It not only disregarded the interests of the state’s voters and communities, but specifically served the interests of big Republican donors.
Among the point Progress Ohio emphasizes:
• At the last minute the corporate headquarters of a major financial contributor was moved into Congressman's Jim Renacci's district at the request of the Speaker John Boehner's political team.
• Ohio Republican officials believed that they saved millions of dollars in future state legislative campaign expenditures by making many districts more safely Republican.
• Speaker Boehner's political team controlled the congressional mapmaking process. Senate President Thomas Niehaus committed to adopting a map which Boehner fully supported.
• $210,000 was secretly paid to two Republican staffers for working three months on redistricting maps.
• A downtown hotel room was rented for three months to use as a secret redistricting office.
• The plan to shroud the process in secrecy was recommended early on by a national Republican consultant who advised state officials in a series of secret meetings.
Isn’t that special?
In light of this, it becomes even more crucial that this corrupt, anti-democratic map never go into effect. If you are in Ohio, please call your county Democratic Party to find out where you can sign the petition to repeal HB 319, which created the new districts. We only have until December 23.
That, hopefully, is only the beginning. Although this pretty much shoots “both parties do it” out of the water, we need to take Ohio’s district drawing process out of the hands of politicians entirely. I hope that this report will increase the momentum for a state constitutional amendment creating a nonpartisan districting commission like they have in Arizona, with guidelines requiring compactness, maximum competitiveness, and community unity. Oh, and a clause specifically barring the governor and legislature from frivolously impeaching any member of the commission. We’ll call that the “Jan Brewer Clause.”