Ohio Voters Extinguish Issue 1 Dumpster Fire

Ohio voters extinguished the Issue 1 dumpster fire Tuesday.

The $37 million secretly funded dark money gerrymander went up in smoke, as voters defeated it by 8 points, 54% to 46%.

The Toledo Blade's Statehouse Bureau Chief, Jim Provance, who has covered Ohio politics for decades summed it up perfectly.

He noted the campaign had more than $37 million, big labor, the Democratic Party, two former justices on the Ohio Supreme Court, and "the endorsement of every major newspaper in the state...And it failed on Tuesday."

Voters also soundly defeated every major newspaper in Ohio that had purposely ignored the fact that this was an out-of-state funded power grab, where more than 99% of the money was raised from coastal and Washington D.C. special interests. 

The newspapers basically said, "your state government is for sale," and voters should give up their power and their voice to an unelected, unaccountable, taxpayer funded redistricting panel selected by retired politicians, otherwise known as retired judges.

Yet, on Election Night, the statewide legacy media, and of course the national media, turned on the tears and launched into the elitist, entitiled, and always offended narrative as President Trump carried Ohio by ten points, crushing the Harris ticket nationwide, and securely capturing the Electoral College.

In their post election podcast, the Editor of cleveland.com, Chris Quinn, and editorial board member, Lisa Garvin lamented that Trump carried Ohio by ten points.

"I'm just confounded by how that happened," said Quinn.

Garvin blamed it on, you guessed it...racism.

"I think underpinning all this is like racism and misogyny."

If Garvin had bothered to just look at the numbers, she would see Trump’s victory was sealed by the big increase in his support from women and minorities. But never let the facts get in the way of fake news and feelings.

That is why the media's influence in Ohio is dead. 

It's an echo chamber of irrelevance.

Newspaper editorial boards should be writting their own going out of business obituaries. 

Here lies an empty building of what used to be respected, relevant and thoughtful debate.

They can whistle past the "Political Outcomes Over People" tombstone in the media graveyard.

Here lies gerrymandering.

$37 million bought a nice tombstone by the way.

How do we know gerrymandering is dead?

Well, because not only did Ohio voters defeat Issue 1, they also elected Republican judges to the Ohio Supreme Court. The O'Connor gerrymandering narrative and her activist Democrat colleagues on the bench were summarily dismissed by the voters as reported in the Toledo Blade.

Voters didn't buy what Issue 1 was selling.

The Toledo Blade's editorial board to its credit recognized the message sent by voters in their latest editorial that probably no one read but us, so here it is.

The final paragraph said:

"Clearly a majority of Ohio voters were uncomfortable with specifying the outcome of elections by the way districts are drawn in a way that would artifically enhance Democratic representation in the General Assembly. Some would - and did - say that's the actual definition of gerrymandering.

The paper should've easily recognized that, and did admit there was an "element of gerrymandering" with Issue 1 in an earlier editorial. But in its infinite wisdom,  endorsed it anyway.

Lessons learned.

This week on the President's Podcast, Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman talks about election night and why the voters soundly defeated Issue 1.

He also talks about the redistricting process for Ohio's Congressional map next year, Iowa's redistricting plan that Governor DeWine suggests Ohio consider using parts of, and whether the Ohio Senate President has any interest in Ohio's open U.S. Senate seat now that J.D. Vance will become Vice President of the United States.

If you missed it, here is the President Huffman's Election Night statement about the voters defeating Issue 1.