The Democrats' Big Lie on Redistricting
Democrats know their proposed constitutional amendment to “end gerrymandering” in Ohio is a scam designed to get political power they can’t earn at the ballot box.
And they know the campaign pushing the amendment to radically change redistricting in Ohio is bankrolled by a $6.66 million windfall in foreign money.
And, crazy as it seems, that was perfectly legal.
But the top Ohio Democrat is calling that a lie.
In reality, it is she who is not telling the truth.
And we can prove it.
House Minority Leader Allison Russo insisted in an op-ed that foreign donations to issue campaigns are already against federal law, while vainly opposing an Ohio Senate bill earlier this year that actually does outlaw that.
In the Columbus Dispatch on May 28, she wrote:
“First, let's get their ‘foreign money’ lie out of the way. The truth is, any contribution of foreign money in our elections is already illegal under federal law, and these federal restrictions also apply to state campaigns.”
That is simply wrong. According to whom? According to the Federal Election Commission.
The Washington Post reported on November 2, 2021:
"The Federal Election Commission has affirmed in a not-yet-public decision that foreign nationals can finance efforts related to ballot initiatives, deciding that the federal ban on foreign money applies only to candidate elections."
That's because:
"Federal law prohibits foreign nationals from making contributions in connection with federal, state or local elections but is silent on spending related to ballot initiatives."
And that is why the Ohio General Assembly passed House Bill 1 during a Special Session this year – specifically to outlaw foreigners making donations to campaigns supporting or opposing ballot initiatives.
Russo is disingenuous on another important matter.
She wrote in the same op-ed that Republicans, “are using the so-called ‘foreign money’ lie to put a stranglehold on grassroots citizen-led ballot initiatives.”
It is not “so-called” foreign money.
It is foreign money bankrolling the redistricting amendment.
That is an established fact and a matter of public record.
Here it is in black and white in the Plain Dealer last week:
“Citizens Not Politicians reported receiving money from hundreds of contributors. Among them are a collection of liberal 501(c)4s, political nonprofit that often are used to make “dark-money” contributions because they are not required to disclose their donors:
• The Sixteen Thirty Fund, which gave $6 million”
As On The Record (and the Plain Dealer) have spelled out in detail, the Sixteen Thirty Fund is bankrolled by foreign money.
Russo and her Democratic colleagues know full well that foreign money is funding the redistricting amendment campaign, and they haven’t denied it – because they can’t.
Russo promoted even more whoppers in her op-ed. The cockamamie redistricting scheme is not a “grassroots” effort.
Nor is it “citizens led.”
It comes from the DC swamp.
That is spelled out below, but first, do you wonder why do Ohio Democrats keep making so many provably false public statements?
The reason is simple – Democrats face a predicament in their never-ending quest for more power in Ohio: the facts are not on their side.
Unwilling to accept the facts, Democrats chose Plan B: the Big Lie.
To make it work, the Big Lie has to be big...so big, no one would ever expect anyone would have the chutzpah to push so many falsehoods to support the lie. But that’s exactly what they’ve done.
Let us count the ways the Democrats are practicing pure hypocrisy:
• The front group for their radical redistricting plan is called “Citizens Not Politicians.” But their biggest donor isn’t even a citizen. He’s a Swiss billionaire.
• Leftists claim their plan prevents gerrymandering but it actually does just the opposite – it would force mapmakers to gerrymander districts.
• There is no gerrymandering in Ohio. They blame gerrymandering for their deep unpopularity.
• Leftists claim this is a bipartisan plan. In reality, it is a purely partisan plan with a campaign run by a Democrat operative carpetbagging from out of state.
• He is just the front man. The “Citizens” calling the shots behind the scenes are actually national Democratic party bosses in Washington – Barack Obama’s henchman Eric Holder and his attorney, Marc Elias.
• The current law on drawing political districts in Ohio is the paragon of bipartisanship, created with the strong support of Democrats.
• Russo is willing to resort to dishonesty in print to pursue power.
Let’s look at the details.
Foreigners Not Citizens
We recently learned that the dark-money group called The Sixteen Thirty Fund made an eye-popping donation of six-million dollars to Citizens Not Politicians. The donation was made three months ago but the Ohio Secretary of State’s office updated its campaign contributions web page just last week.
On the Record previously reported the fund had made a $550,000 donation to Citizens last year. Now we know the Sixteen Thirty Fund has made four such donations totaling $6,669,800.
On the Record also previously reported the identity of the Sixteen Thirty Fund’s bankroller. Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss has donated well more than $200 million to the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which spent more than $400 million supporting leftist candidates and causes in the 2020 election.
The Sixteen Thirty Fund spent $12 million dollars supporting leftist causes in ballot campaigns in Ohio in 2023.
Democrats claim it’s not fair to call this money foreign because it’s difficult to tell how much of Sixteen Thirty’s donations came from Wyss directly.
But that’s just the point – it is difficult to tell. (That's why we passed House Bill 1.) All we know is that the money is tainted. Which means the fund’s entire donation is tainted. It doesn’t matter how much or how little poison went into the pot – the entire pot is poisoned by the taint of illegal money.
The Plain Dealer reported a sure sign that Citizens knows its money is tainted by its foreign source:
“Notably, the campaign reported having no money left over — a stark contrast to standard operating procedures for political campaigns, which typically hold money back for use closer to the election.
The move could be a response to a law Republican state lawmakers passed in June expanding Ohio’s ban on foreign contributions to state political campaigns and giving Republican Attorney General Dave Yost authority to investigate any alleged violations.”
That bill becomes law in just a few weeks, on September 1st.
It is clear that Citizens spent their millions as soon as possible to make sure that tainted money was all used before the new law went into effect.
Gerrymandering by stealth
Citizens’ entire campaign pitch is built on the premise that its proposed constitutional amendment, now eligible to appear on the November ballot, will end the alleged gerrymandering in Ohio.
Just one problem. It would do the opposite.
Governor Mike DeWine explained that clearly last week:
"If this amendment were to be adopted, Ohio would actually end up with a system that mandates – that compels – map drawers to produce gerrymandered districts. In fact, Ohio would have gerrymandering in the extreme."
The governor explained that's because the plan would put a premium on proportionality (past partisan voting patterns) above other critical considerations such as:
• Respecting county, village, city, and township lines,
• Keeping “communities of interest” together,
• Keeping districts reasonably equal in total population.
DeWine produced maps showing what House districts would look like under the Citizens plan. The maps were so severely gerrymandered that they violated every important criteria under current law in order to achieve proportionality.
“Yes, you can draw a statewide map where proportionality is mandated, but in doing so, all the other things people say they want in district maps go away!” observed DeWine. “Proportionality wins, but everything thing else loses.”
He added, “Proportionality is the ultimate in gerrymandering by manipulating each district, so it favors one party or the other.”
And that’s why Democrats are so desperately pushing this convoluted amendment: they want to redraw the maps to gain the power they can’t win legitimately at the polls.
False claims of gerrymandering
The Democrats’ big lie in Ohio is that Republicans hold such large majorities in elected offices because of gerrymandering. The state media has bought that hook, line, and sinker.
It’s not just false. It’s provably false.
Democrats can’t even win a majority on their own turf.
Democrats currently have an advantage in 15 Ohio Senate Districts.
However, Republicans won 8 of those districts.
If you can't even win most of the districts where you are favored, then gerrymandering is not your problem. You problem is obviously your policies, your candidates, or both.
GOP senate candidates won in three districts that actually favored Democrats in 2022.
Democrats did not win in any Republican-leaning districts.
Republicans won 12 of the 16 toss-up districts in the House race.
Furthermore, Republicans swept all the statewide elections for office.
The governor was reelected by more than 25 points. That’s a mega-landslide.
The reason for all of this is obvious and undeniable.
Ohio isn’t gerrymandered.
Ohio is simply a solid red state. (Even the national media has recoginzed this.) The election results proved Democrats are extremely vulnerable even in Democrat-leaning districts. What they are selling just isn’t that popular.
Gerrymandering played no role. The evidence is clear and indisputable. That doesn’t stop Democrats and the most hardcore of the reality-deniers in the Ohio media from continuing to howl the maps were gerrymandered.
But the numbers and the facts speak louder than their fake news.
So, when the Citizens’ campaign manager blithely claims, “Ohio is one of the 10 worst gerrymandered states in the country,” you know that is false.
Purely partisan politics
Democrats push the false claim that their redistricting amendment is a bipartisan plan because it has the backing of Republican-In-Name-Only Maureen O’Connor.
But the perpetually befuddled former Ohio Supreme Court Justice was thoroughly discredited by higher court decisions during the redistricting battles last year.
Those courts consistently overruled her ham-fisted attempts to let Democrats gerrymander when she unconstitutionally placed an emphasis on proportionality over what current law actually demands.
In reality, the proposed amendment is a purely partisan plan with a campaign run by a radical-left carpetbagger from out of state.
The Democrat’s dark money man behind the Citizens Not Politicians campaign is Sean Soendker Nicholson.
He is a far-left Democratic political operative who specializes in opposition research.
Bipartisan? You decide. Nicholson’s bio:
• Vice President at Kennedy Communications, a Democratic communications and research shop in Washington “specializing in campaign persuasion mail” for progressive, issue-based campaigns targeting “the most persuadable voters.”
• Executive Director at Fired Up! Missouri, “a digital marketing agency and political consulting firm for campaigns, businesses, and progressive causes,” targeting “mean-spirited, self-righteous, close-minded, divisive, irresponsible, loud-mouthed, fear-mongering politicians.”
• Executive Director and Founder of Progress Missouri, a “liberal and progressive advocacy group,” and “a marketing department for progressive ideas – a campaign that never stops.”
• Campaign Director for Clean Missouri election campaigns in 2018 and 2020, a “transpartisan coalition of organizations and grassroots leaders” to “persuade and mobilize the voters” to fall for a far-left redistricting scheme.
• A Principal at GPS Impact, helping “Democrats, progressive organizations and initiatives, and elected officials win in red states, including Kansas, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Louisiana and Ohio” using “communicators, influencers, problem solvers, storytellers.”
• Campaign Director for Citizens Not Politicians, “a collection of voting-rights groups that’s yet to share many details of their campaign plans.”
The carpetbagging consultant is now targeting Ohio after failing to flimflam his fellow Missourians into turning their red state blue, using a nearly identical scam: pushing a state constitutional amendment that claimed to put redistricting map-making power into the hands of citizens.
Radical progressives are using the same tactic around the country: falsely claiming Republicans are gerrymandering and promoting a “bipartisan” fix that would actually favor real gerrymandering by Democrats.
Nicholson is trying to sell Ohio the same “bipartisan” snake oil he suckered Missouri into buying when voters approved it in 2018.
His plan worked but only temporarily.
Voters in the “Show Me State” had immediate buyer’s remorse.
They realized they’d been sold a bill of goods to fix a problem that didn’t exist, thanks to an astroturf campaign financed by tons of outside money.
Missouri voters rejected Nicholson’s scheme the first chance they got – the very next election in 2020.
How did he fool so many voters in the first place?
False advertising and out-of-state dark money. The same plan he has for Ohio.
Eighty-five percent of the $23 million Citizens raised from January to June has come from out-of-state.
This fraudulent campaign isn’t even backed by Ohioans.
It’s an attempted coup by Democrats back in the DC swamp.
DC puppet masters target Ohio
Nicholson is just the front man. The “Citizens” calling the shots behind the scenes are actually national Democratic party bosses in Washington.
Barack Obama’s former Attorney General Eric Holder and his attorney, Marc Elias, are the puppet masters of this campaign working to undermine the Ohio Constitution.
Ohio lawmakers in the General Assembly reached a bipartisan agreement in 2015 on a constitutional amendment to fix the redistricting process. Voters overwhelmingly approved it by 70 percent.
Then Ohio turned from a swing state to solidly red after 2016 and the election of President Trump.
Democrats needed a scapegoat to explain their deep unpopularity in Ohio.
Former Attorney General Eric Holder had an easy answer to pitch to the press and the public – if Democrats can’t win, it must be gerrymandering.
Ohio lawmakers had fulfilled their constitutional duty by drawing new congressional district maps in 2021 that satisfied all legal requirements.
But Holder’s National Democratic Redistricting Committee repeatedly filed lawsuits to try to sabotage the legal process and upend the Ohio Constitution at every turn.
The NDRC claimed the map boundaries were gerrymandered. But they never presented a shred of evidence to back that up.
Former Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice O’Connor sided with the radical left’s objections to both congressional and state legislative maps. She inexplicably based her ruling on criteria that doesn’t appear in the Ohio Constitution as overwhelmingly approved by the voters.
She ignored what the text of the law plainly said.
O’Connor, in effect, declared her opinion above the law.
A federal district court panel and the U.S. Supreme Court both disagreed.
That compelled a stymied Holder to drop his lawsuits. It also motivated Democrats on the Ohio Redistricting Commission to drop the charade and approve the current maps.
By a bipartisan and unanimous vote of 7-0 last fall, the Ohio Redistricting Commission approved new maps for the General Assembly.
Holder’s suits were actually filed by the national Democratic Party's longtime (2009-2023) lawyer, Marc Elias.
Now he is trying another underhanded and disingenuous ploy.
Elias filed suit in June to overturn Ohio’s law banning foreign nationals from contributing to state ballot campaigns.
He claims it would curtail free speech. Why foreigners should have a say in American elections he doesn’t explain.
It gets worse – talk about conflict of interest. Elias is getting paid indirectly by those foreign nationals. He is on the Citizens Not Politicians payroll – the group bankrolled by foreign money.
Citizens made nine payments to Elias from October to June totaling $69,729.95.
Elias is suing to keep his illegal foreign dark-money pipeline open, so he can keep getting paid.
What does our state media say about that?
Nothing but crickets.
Current law is epitome of bipartisanship
Democrats were strongly for the current redistricting law before they were against it. The constitutional amendment was hailed as a model of bipartisanship when it was adopted in 2015.
Democrats had enthusiastically endorsed the constitutional amendment creating Ohio’s current redistricting system. So did voters, as it passed with a whopping 70 percent of the vote.
As Senate President Matt Huffman explained in a recent President’s Podcast, “Republicans and Democrats got together in 2015 and drafted an amendment that addressed all of (the previous problems.) And then we campaigned together. (Democrat Senator) Vern Sykes and I were the campaign co-chairs.”
But, again, that was before the election of President Trump, when the state turned solid red.
The real problem for the radical left is that Ohio doesn’t have a gerrymandering issue but Democrats have an electability issue.
The Big Lie
Russo pushed the following falsehoods as a guest columnist in the Columbus Dispatch on May 28.
She implicitly denied Ohio’s leftists were using foreign money to sponsor issue campaigns.
And she explicitly accused Republicans of lying when we said they were.
That is a big lie.
We would merely ask Russo, if “any contribution of foreign money in our elections is already illegal,” then why hasn’t she asked the Citizens campaign to return its millions of dark foreign money?
And why did she and her Democrat colleagues fight so hard against House Bill 1 outlawing foreign money in ballot campaigns?
You know why.
To keep that foreign money pipeline flowing into leftist campaigns.
Because when it comes to writing our laws and governing our state, Democrats prefer Foreigners, Not Citizens.
Garth Kant is Senior Press Secretary of the Ohio Senate Majority Caucus