When Ohioans Vote, We Win

In the past year, politically savvy Ohioans may have noticed an interesting phenomenon at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus. When members of the legislature discussed issues like protecting abortion access or legalizing recreational cannabis, they were shot down, disregarded, or even outright demonized by Republican lawmakers. When put up for consideration as citizen-led ballot issues, they received enthusiastic votes of support from Ohioans and passed with a sound majority, much to the chagrin of Republican politicians.

So, why do we have such a disconnect between a population that generally supports these issues and a legislative supermajority that vehemently opposes them? The answer is likely something that you’ve been hearing a lot about lately: gerrymandering.

Under our current redistricting laws, GOP politicians enjoy an artificial supermajority and have manipulated our state’s legislative maps to rig the system in ways that even our Republican-controlled state Supreme Court deemed unconstitutional seven times.

An investigation by Newsweek published this past June shows that Ohio is one of the country's most gerrymandered states in the nation. This is an accolade Republicans are fighting hard to keep.

This November, the people of Ohio have a chance to take the power of redistricting out of the hands of politicians and put it into the hands of citizens with Issue 1. Issue 1 would create a citizen-led redistricting commission of equal parts Republicans, Independents, and Democrats, freeing the redistricting process from self-serving elected officials who are often more focused on expanding their manufactured supermajority than creating a map that accurately represents the interests of the people of Ohio.

Ohioans have made it clear that they want redistricting reform, but now they are being gaslighted by our very own Secretary of State, Frank LaRose. Gaslighting is defined as a form of psychological abuse or manipulation in which the person of power attempts to sow self-doubt and confusion in the victim’s mind. Typically, gaslighters seek to gain power and control over people by distorting reality and making them question their judgment and intuition. Over 731,000 Ohioans signed a petition to put redistricting reform on the ballot. The language on that ballot measure has now been manipulated and distorted by LaRose and the Republican politicians that control the Ohio Ballot Board, a committee composed of members of the Ohio House and Senate led by the Secretary of State.

Ballot Board Chair LaRose and his republican counterparts acted in a disingenuous manner when they approved language that paints a citizen-led, anti-gerrymandering measure as an attack on the redistricting process and approved language that says the new commission would be, “Required to gerrymander the legislative and congressional district lines.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, his decision to write and adopt misleading and deceptive language jeopardizes the integrity of our election process. This is all part of an effort to gaslight the people of Ohio and maintain a supermajority that will allow those in power to continue to use the power of the pen and the state legislature as a weapon against the people of Ohio.

The language that will appear on the November ballot is one in a series of Frank LaRose’s recent attacks on our state's election process. In a letter to the President of the Senate and Speaker of the House, he again attempted to suppress voting rights in this state by suggesting they pass legislation to ban ballot drop boxes, require proof of citizenship for voter registration, and force voters to cast provisional ballots for voter registration if their voter registration differs from the information on file with the Bureau of Motor Vehicles or the Social Security Administration (BMV/SSA).

Let me be clear, our Secretary of State is using his power to push a political agenda making it harder for Ohioans to vote—the antithesis of the Secretary of State’s job! 

We have a chance to cut through the lies and deceit and make Ohio a better, more representative democracy. Early voting in Ohio begins October 8. I plan to vote yes on Issue 1, for citizens, not politicians, to draw districts that will lead Ohio into a more balanced representative future where the people choose their representatives, not the other way around.