Panicked! Issue 1 Campaign Dumps Millions More into Dark Money Dumpster Fire

Breaking news!

The Issue 1 gerrymander just tossed another $11 million into its dumpster fire of a campaign.

What was already a secretly funded, out-of-state dark money campaign, just waded neck deep into the DC Swamp. That makes this a $37 million attempt by DC special interests to buy their way into the Ohio Constitution.

$7 million in additional contributions came from Article IV, a dark money special interest group out of DC that originally contributed $3.5 million.

This is not an Ohio grassroots campaign, and Maureen O'Connor and her special interest friends are running scared.

The Issue 1 campaign collapsed into full panic mode this week as its self-created dumpster fire of a document finds itself without facts to defend a very embarrassing and troubling reality facing minority voters.

Their target? Bipartisan Black legislative leaders.

Senator Michele Reynolds, R-Canal Winchester, who was joined by long time State Representative John Barnes, D-Cleveland, at a news conference last week, pointed out that Issue 1 disenfranchises Black voters.  Senator Reynolds and her bipartisan colleagues brought the proof. The former chairperson of Michigan’s Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission, Rebecca Szetela, highlighted how that panel’s first map was ruled a racial gerrymander by a federal court panel.

In fact, even after the panel made changes, Detroit’s political districts lay in ruin, after the city was divided 22 times. That left Detroit, which has a 78% Black majority population, with 0% Black members of Congress.

Case closed.

But this week, the Political Outcomes Over People campaign held a $37 million ransom over Democrat Black lawmakers, rolling them out to a hastily called news conference. They were joined by none other than an Issue 1 operative, Deidra Reese, who serves as the Voter Engagement Director of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative. That’s a far-left special interest group that raised more than $300,000 for Issue 1’s radical gerrymandering agenda.

Here's the receipts from their contributions. 

$300,000 on May 14th, 2024.

And a few dollars more last March and June.

They dismissed the facts of disenfranchisement as disinformation.

These Democrat activists and lawmakers are so blinded by the millions of dollars their deep state overlords are spending, they believe it wise to bring one of their far-left fundraisers to the podium to lecture about fairness. That’s kind of like saying all the precinct judges statewide were assigned by the Harris/Walz campaign. Sure. We trust you. Not.

In fact, Reese went onto say that during Redistricting Commission testimony three years ago, the Republican map maker, said he was instructed not to draw maps based on race. Correct. That’s because the federal courts have long held that it is unconstitutional to draw maps based on race, as Michigan’s so called voters commission painfully learned. Reese and her colleagues went onto to reassure voters that Michigan's system is not Issue 1. We agree, Issue 1 is far worse.

Issue 1 would gerrymander maps for fixed outcomes at the expense of the Black community.

Long on hyperbole and “trust us” narratives about the so-called fairness of Issue 1, they simply focused on what their deep state dictators told them to say.

• 7 times the maps were found unconstitutional.
• Ohio’s plan is better than Michigan’s.
• Supermajorities are a result of gerrymandering.

It is easy to throw grenades, but far harder to catch them when they come back to you with facts, instead of fumes. So, let’s respond.

The narrow 4-3 O’Connor majority led by the former Chief Justice who is fronting the out-of-state gerrymander by appearing in their television ads, was embarrassed by the U.S. Supreme Court when it vacated her ruling on the Congressional maps, and then told O’Connor to use the Constitution next time.

Before that, a federal court panel said that O’connor and company were making it up as they went along, by using "...a strict proportionality test that cannot be easily found in the text of Ohio's Constitution."

Read page 51 below.

What Issue 1 has planned for Ohio is far worse than Michigan. That’s because it is founded in proportionality. That means the mission is gerrymandered from the beginning by assigning a set percentage of districts to Democrats and Republicans. 

That will force the big cities to be blasted apart just like Detroit to meet proportionality. That is why Detroit has no Black member of Congress.

That is gerrymandering.

Supermajorities reflect the voice of the voter. In the Ohio Senate, 15 districts have a Democrat advantage. With that in mind, it would be logical to think that a Democrat has a good chance to win. However, because candidates, campaigns and issues matter, Republicans have won 8 of those 15 districts, resulting in a supermajority in the Senate. Issue 1 removes competition by fixing the game before the National Anthem even plays.

Do you homework.

Learn from "The Michigan Mistake."

Protect Black communities.

Stand firmly against the Issue 1 gerrymander.

Watch our President's Podcast this week, that features Senator Reynolds, Representative Barnes, Michigan Chairwoman Rebecca Sztela, Governor DeWine, Secretary of State Frank LaRose, Senator Rob McColley and Senate President Matt Huffman as they urge voters to protect their voice by not giving it away to an unelected, unaccountable panel backed by this secretly funded campaign.