YES, O'CONNOR IS THE DEMOCRATS' PUPPET
Maureen O’Connor says she isn’t a puppet.
Sadly, she’s wrong.
She says support for Issue 1 is bipartisan.
Wrong again.
She says Ohio’s redistricting maps were unconstitutional.
She was wrong seven times.
Let’s fact check the former Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice.
Current maps are constitutional
Issue 1 on the November ballot is the Democrats’ attempt to overturn the Ohio Constitution’s rules on drawing redistricting maps.
It’s a transparent ploy to gain more seats they can’t win at the ballot box by changing the rules of the game.
Issue 1 does the exact opposite of what its backers claim – it would not end gerrymandering – it would make it mandatory, as both Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and On The Record have explained clearly and in detail.
In her campaign ad pushing Issue 1, O’Connor gripes about the process voters overwhelmingly approved in 2015 and 2018.
O’Connor indignantly describes how she ruled seven times (seven times!) that maps approved by the redistricting commission in the last few years were unconstitutional.
Just one problem.
That isn’t the selling point she seems to think it is...because her rulings were overruled by higher courts – the U.S. Supreme Court and a three-judge federal district court panel.
She is actually telling the world she got it wrong seven times.
Seven times!
And, somehow, she is bragging about that...?
Here are the facts:
- The U.S. Supreme Court found former Chief Justice O’Connor’s rulings on Ohio’s congressional maps were unconstitutional.
The U.S. Supreme Court overruled O'Connor's rulings.
On June 30, 2023, the top court in the land vacated the Ohio Supreme Court’s ruling that the congressional maps were unconstitutional.
In light of its ruling in a separate North Carolina redistricting case, the high court overturned the O’Connor Court decision and remanded the matter to the state supreme court for further consideration within the bounds of ordinary judicial review, which the O’Connor Court had flagrantly overstepped.
- The Ohio Supreme Court has, in fact, found the statehouse maps are constitutional and effective for the remainder of the decade.
A three-judge federal district court panel ruled in 2022 that the third map presented by the Ohio Redistricting Commission would be used for the election that year, finding that the Ohio Supreme Court had rejected the commission’s maps “under a strict proportionality standard that cannot easily be found in the text of Ohio’s Constitution.”
The court also instructed the commission to produce new maps following the 2022 election cycle. However, with O’Connor having retired from the bench, Democrats realized in 2023 they could no longer stall the process indefinitely, so they dropped their lawsuits contesting the validity of the maps.
That compelled Democrats on the commission to drop their objections to the maps. The current statehouse maps were then approved by a unanimous and bipartisan Redistricting Commission vote, making them perfectly valid and constitutional in a 2023 ruling of the Ohio Supreme Court.
Support for Issue 1 is not bipartisan
O’Connor and her foreign-funded far-left allies keep claiming Issue 1 has bipartisan support.
No, it doesn’t.
She can’t name one Republican who supports this harebrained and extremely partisan scheme designed solely to elect more Democrats.
Other than herself.
And even that’s in doubt.
As Ohio Rep. Adam Bird (R-New Richmond) told the media, “I don’t know that she’s a Republican. I don’t see any evidence of that.”
The best the Issue 1 astroturf front group Citizens Not Politicians could come up with is a hammy actor playing a “staunch conservative” on a laughably and transparently phony ad. (As persuasive as Gov. Tim Walz demonstrating how to load a shotgun.)
Which Republicans oppose Issue 1?
All of them.
Staunchly.
Issue 1 is opposed by every prominent Republican in Ohio and beyond, including:
Former President Donald Trump
Senator J.D. Vance
Former GOP Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy
Ohio Republican Party
Ohio Senate Republican Caucus
Ohio House of Representatives Republican Caucus
Ohio Republican U.S. Congressional Delegation
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine
Ohio Lt. Governor Jon Husted
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose
Ohio Auditor Keith Faber
Ohio Treasurer Robert Sprague
Citizens also claims business groups support Issue 1, including the likes of the “Village Bakery Cafe” and “Wild Cat Gift and Party.”
Here’s who opposes Issue 1:
Ohio Chamber of Commerce
Ohio Manufacturers’ Association
Ohio Farm Bureau
Ohio Health Care Association
Ohio Oil & Gas Association
Ohio Chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business
Buckeye Firearms Association
Black Equity & Redistricting Fund
O’Connor is the Democrat’s puppet
The evidence indicates O’Connor is wrong to insist she is not the Democrat’s puppet.
And O’Connor is wrong when she says she’s not being used by Eric Holder and his national movement to flip red states to blue.
Perhaps even more tragically, she may not even realize it.
In an interview with the editorial board of the Plain Dealer, O’Connor told the paper that Issue 1 supporters are not attached to any liberal puppet masters.
“I’d like to go on record that I’ve never met Eric Holder, never spoken with Eric Holder,” O’Connor said about the former attorney general who runs the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC) and, as the paper reported, “has challenged several GOP-authored Ohio redistricting plans in court.”
Of course Holder hasn’t held a joint press conference with O’Connor, allowed himself to be seen anywhere near her, or even necessarily contacted her directly.
That’s not how rackets like Holder’s NDRC and the mafia work.
This is how it works – they use layers upon layers of middlemen and groups to hide who is at the top and pulling the strings.
That’s the same way Democrats launder their dark money through proxy groups to hide their backers, including the source of their millions in campaign funds coming in from overseas.
For instance, On The Record has previously detailed how Democrats use proxy groups to disguise how they inject their propaganda and fake news into mainstream news outlets in Ohio:
• Woke billionaires George Soros and Bill Gates, the Ford Foundation, and other far-left sugar daddies pour billions into an umbrella group called Arabella.
• Arabella manages numerous organizations serving as its far-reaching tentacles, one of which is a nonprofit group called Hopewell.
• Hopewell funds a woke network they call States Newsrooms. Those “newsrooms” are seeded around the country as a way to push woke propaganda as though it is real news.
• The States Newsroom tentacle in Ohio is called The Capital Journal.
• The Journal’s stories are inserted into the MSM by the Cleveland Plain Dealer and WEWS-TV.
The flow chart: Rich donors > Arabella Advisors > Hopewell Fund > States Newsrooms > Capital Journal > MSM outlets in Ohio
That’s also how leftists have funded the Issue 1 campaign (run by Citizens Not Politicians) with millions from groups outside Ohio.
One of the groups under the Arabella umbrella is The Sixteen Thirty Fund. That fund is the biggest sponsor of Citizens, having donated more than $6 million to its Issue 1 campaign.
The fund is bankrolled by a woke billionaire from Switzerland, Hansjörg Wyss.
His ambition is to "(re)interpret the American Constitution in the light of progressive politics,” according to the biography written by his sister.
Wyss also funds Holder’s NDRC.
George Soros’ Tides Foundation has donated $2 million to Citizens, as has the far-left, Virginia-based Article IV group. The ACLU has donated $3.5 million, as has OAFF, the far-left advocacy group based in D.C.
Proxies to Puppet
This strategy of using layers of proxy groups is also how Holder directs his NDRC’s national campaign to elect more Democrats by targeting the redistricting laws in red states (as On The Record has described in detail.)
They disguise the NDRC’s partisan plan as a bipartisan effort to “end gerrymandering and restore free and fair elections.” The NDRC is actually a Democratic Party PAC (political action committee.)
The NDRC pushes state ballot initiatives organized by liberal proxy groups to change how states draw congressional and legislative districts, taking the power away from the voters and putting it in the hands of unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats – what they disingenuously call independent panels or citizens’ commissions, which can then be stacked with stealth Democrats and cronies.
One of the NDRC’s “anti-gerrymandering” proxies in Ohio is called Fair Districts, which is run by the leftist League of Women Voters and Common Cause Ohio. They strongly support Citizens Not Politicians, for whom O’Connor is now the spokesperson.
The flow chart for this proxy strategy in Ohio looks like this:
NDRC > League of Women Voters > Fair Maps > Citizens Not Politicians
The proxy group names may vary from state to state.
For instance, the proxy in the lowest rung is called Voters Not Politicians in Michigan; in Oklahoma it is People Not Politicians; and Citizens Not Politicians in Ohio.
The proxy just above those groups is key.
The League of Women Voters (LOWV) has a redistricting activist group in every one of the fifty states.
They have names like Fair Maps, Fair Districts, or some variation on that theme.
The LOWV brag about it openly on their website:
“People Powered Fair MapsTM is a national redistricting program of the League of Women Voters focused on creating fair political maps nationwide. The program includes actions in all 50 states + D.C.”
Here are some of the 50 names these proxies use:
· Fair Maps Michigan
· Fair Maps Missouri
· Fair Maps Virginia
· Fair Districts Pennsylvania
· Fair Districts Colorado
· Fair Maps Arizona
· Fair Districts Florida
· Fair Districts Ohio
· Fair Maps Texas
· Fair Districts Georgia
· Fair Maps in Minnesota
· Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition
These are all pretending to be homegrown, grassroots, independent organizations in each state, when they are really part of a far-left national organization.
They are actually far-left stealth groups taking their cues from far-left national Democrats like Holder and Barrack Obama.
And, whether they realize it or not, they are all working to further Holder and Obama’s national goal of flipping red states to blue.
• The NDRC sets the goals.
• The LOWV finds the activists in the states.
• Then they launch a “redistricting reform” group pretending to be independent and nonpartisan or bipartisan.
O’Connor is the public face of the far-left redistricting group in Ohio pretending to be nonpartisan, Citizens Not Politicians.
Ergo, she is Holder’s puppet by proxy...whether she knows it or not.
League of Far-Left Activists
But wait, isn’t the League of Women Voters nonpartisan?
The LOWV is not what is used to be. The League still claims to be “a nonpartisan, grassroots organization working to protect and expand voting rights.”
The evidence shows otherwise.
It is now a very woke far-left group pretending to be nonpartisan.
According to the Capital Research Center, the LOWV is anything but nonpartisan, as it “supports Democratic candidates for public office and left-wing policies.”
“It has been a steady voice for legislation to deal with climate change, establish stricter gun control and environmental legislation, and make the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) the law of the land,” and “has been a vociferous opponent of school vouchers and laws requiring photo identification to vote.”
According to Influence Watch, the LOWV supports “tax-and-spend policies, government-run healthcare, a wide range of increased welfare handouts, a ban on certain low-priced handguns, and support for international organizations including the International Criminal Court.”
“[T]he league supports legalization of status for illegal immigrants already in the country, opposes deportations for non-criminal illegal immigrants.”
Even the League, itself, concedes it now has a social justice agenda.
Holder’s smoking gun
The League is the perfect proxy to facilitate Holder’s far-left agenda.
And here’s the smoking gun that Holder is lying about his intentions.
In the friendliest video interview, ever, Holder tells the NDRC's attorney, Marc Elias:
“Our goal is not partisan. I really want to emphasize that our goal is for America to have a more representative democracy, and our goal is to make sure that everyone's vote counts and that every voice is actually heard.”
Not partisan?
Really?
Then why does the NDRC endorse nothing but Democrats for office?
It’s right there on their website, on the page titled, NDRC Announces 5th Round of 2024 Democracy Defenders.
It reads:
This round of endorsements supports Democratic candidates running for the following state legislative chambers:
1. Arizona House of Representatives and Arizona State Senate
2. Michigan House of Representatives
3. Minnesota Senate
4. New Hampshire House of Representatives and New Hampshire State Senate
5. Wisconsin State Assembly and Wisconsin State Senate
It gets more blatant in Ohio.
The NDRC is endorsing three judges for the state Supreme Court.
All Democrats.
It was the Democrats on the Ohio Supreme Court who were O’Connor’s allies on redistricting.
It was their votes that allowed O’Connor to obstruct the implementation of the state’s perfectly valid and constitutional maps (as determined by the higher courts.)
You don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to guess who O’Connor is rooting for in these elections.
Does O’Connor know what she is doing?
It’s not difficult to follow the logic chain tying Holder to O’Connor.
Holder set the redistricting agenda, the LOWV and Fair Maps groups provided the troops, Citizens gets the money and runs the campaign, and O’Connor is the figurehead – the public face of the Issue 1 campaign.
O’Connor is doing Holder’s bidding.
Even if she doesn’t know it.
But there is a telltale clue, she really does.
While O’Connor was issuing some of her seven rejections of perfectly valid redistricting maps (soon to overturned by higher courts) she began campaigning for Issue 1 from the bench – even before there was an Issue 1.
In her January 2022 opinion, the chief justice mused, out of nowhere, that "…Ohioans may opt to pursue further constitutional amendment to replace the current commission with a truly independent, nonpartisan commission that more effectively distances the redistricting process from partisan politics.”
Where did she get that idea?
Perhaps it was the fact that, at the same time, the aforementioned attorney Marc Elias was suing the redistricting commission to invalidate the same maps O’Connor was attacking from the bench.
To reiterate, Elias just happens to be the attorney for the NDRC.
And Eric Holder.
O’Connor didn’t need to take a phone call from Holder to enact his agenda.
All she had to do was take the reins of the entire process he had set in motion, once Citizens was established and began raking in millions from woke billionaires.
Why would she do such a thing?
Why would she try to overturn the redistricting amendments to the Ohio Constitution overwhelmingly approved by more than 70% of voters in 2015 and 2018?
Maybe, just maybe, it’s because back when O'Connor was Lt. Governor she aspired to become Governor.
Except, for whatever reason, she didn’t have the support of her colleagues, and had to “settle” for the Ohio Supreme Court.
Today, it seems she may have two Issue 1’s.
• Fronting a campaign designed to fool the voters into giving their power away.
• Political retribution.
Or maybe the job just pays well.
Garth Kant is Senior Press Secretary of the Ohio Senate Majority Caucus