Cool Cleveland ENDORSEMENT:
YES on State Issue #2 to create a commission to draw legislative districts
The despicable and anti-democratic practice gerrymandering districts to favor the political party in control has only been tolerated up until now because the opposing party couldn’t wait to do their own gerrymandering once the tables had turned. The current law allows the party in power to draw voting district boundaries however they see fit. It’s essentially a loophole in democracy that ensures unfair representation all the time.
Now an unaffiliated citizens group called Voters First has collected the necessary 385,247 signatures statewide to put this measure on the ballot. In fact, over 406,000 signatures were certified in a period of less than 3 months.
All voters needed this year was the cynical and ridiculously drawn 9th Congressional District, designed by Ohio Republicans to pit popular Democrats Dennis Kucinich and Marcy Kaptur, which has resulted in a dumbbell-shaped district containing the West Side of Cleveland and the East Side of Toledo, with a 5-mile wide strip of lakeshore connecting the two. In fact, most of the District is in Lake Erie. Although it achieved the Republicans’ goal of eliminating one re-electable Democrat, the resulting misshapen District is certainly less well-represented. And don’t fool yourself, the Democrats would do and have done just the same when they are in the majority.
The passage of Issue 2 would make Ohio’s redistricting process more transparent and more balanced by creating an Independent Citizens Commission absent of politicians, lobbyists and insiders. The redistricting, required by the Ohio constitution every 10 years, would take into account community preservation, competitiveness, representational fairness and compactness. Opponents have been lying in their ads that the Commission would have a “blank check.” In fact, the Commission would only have enough funding “necessary to adequately fund the activities,” so that the legislature couldn’t thwart them by cutting off their budget.
We encourage you to vote “YES” on Issue 2.