Ohio Ballot Board Sets Clear Ballot Language for November's Constitutional Amendment

The Ohio Ballot board approved the language you will read this November for an out-of-state and foreign funded Constitutional Amendment that would again change Ohio’s redistricting process.

Friday afternoon, the board voted on clear language for the November ballot.

This, after the face of the "Political Outcomes Over People Campaign," as we like to call it, submitted a sanitized, overly generic summary concealing, or at best ignoring what it really does. Former Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor's submission omits key criteria about how districts would be drawn, how the so-called citizens panel would be selected, and as Governor Mike DeWine correctly pointed out in his news conference, how it generates fixed outcomes through proportionality which is also known as gerrymandering.

Read the submission the campaign submitted. More than 13,000 words reduced to 5 bullet points.

The campaign's language ignores, conceals, or in legal terms, materially omits, much of what the Constitutional Amendment would actually do, including how the so-called Citizens Commission would be selected and what the role of special masters within the redistricting process would be. 

This is especially interersting since the former Chief Justice herself should know that since she concurred with an opinion under Voters First in 2012.  In that 6-1 opinion the State Supreme Court held that materially omitting information for a ballot issue is sufficient cause to reject all of the ballot language.

Their proposal even omits, or more appropriately conceals, or ignores the specific criteria that the new commission would be required to follow for drawing both legislative and congressional districts.

Read part of the more detailed summary initially proposed by the Secretary of State to the Ballot Board.

Here is the final language that you will see on your ballot this November as approved by the Ohio Ballot Board.

The Board voted 3-2 to change the word "manipulate" in Section 2, to "gerrymander," which is what the campaign seeks to do through the use of proportionality. Generate fixed outcomes at the expense of district population requirements and compact districts representing communities of interest.

The Constitutional Amendment would in fact repeal both redistricting amendments approved by voters by more than 70% of the vote in 2015 and 75% of the vote in  2018.

There would be zero accountability to the voters once the citizens panel dissolves. Ohioans would not be able to complain to the panel because it would no longer exist, and elected officials, who the people chose to represent them would be powerless to change the process.  This really represents an attack on democracy through a fourth branch of government appointed by former members of the judiciary.

We’ve been very clear about what the campaign actually represents. A progressive power grab funded almost entirely by out-of-state dark money, topped off by a foreign linked contribution by The Sixteen Thirty Fund. An organization founded by Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Weiss.

This week, Gongwer-Ohio, a well-respected subscription based newsroom that covers Ohio politics, reported that Citizens Not Politicians spent more of its foreign linked dark money funds.  “The campaign, meanwhile, recently reserved another $4.19 million in advertising, bringing its total so far to $19.2 million…”

This campaign doesn’t care whose money it spends. Foreign or otherwise, the dollars might as well come from North Korea or China. Ohioans might find this sellout to foreign influence troubling to say the least.

Appearing on the President’s Podcast last week, the Executive Director of Americans for Public Trust, Caitlin Sutherland, explained the danger, “When you find out that a huge chunk of this money is coming from foreign sources we are so glad again that Ohio took action to close that loophole because I do think people want to know where the money is coming from.” 

What is their agenda? What is the motivation for spending tens of millions of dollars to subvert the will of Ohio voters who passed the current redistricting process that produced a unanimous bipartisan vote for General Assembly maps for the rest of the decade?

Sutherland made it clear that Ohio and other states are under attack by operatives like Hansjorg Weiss, and his Sixteen Thirty Fund that detest our form of government.  “And what we’ve discovered in this instance is a motivation from a foreign national that says he wants to reinterpret the American Constitution. That’s really important to know, so folks find that these television advertisements have any ties to foreign sources I really hope that they question the message and question the intent, and are really empowered to do their own research.”

This week, Secretary of State Frank LaRose and Senator Theresa Gavarone who both serve on the Ohio Ballot Board join the President’s Podcast. They explain the language for the amendment you’ll face in November, and they'll explain the dangers of foreign dark money attempting to infiltrate our election system along with their efforts to protect Ohio’s election integrity.