It’s the stench coming from Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s office as he spearheads a disingenuous process to deceive people about the intent of Issue 1, which goes before voters in November.
The amendment would remove politicians’ control over redistricting and create an independent commission to draw fair legislative maps.
That’s it in a nutshell. Instead, LaRose’s office wrote ballot language that paints the amendment as an effort to take power away from voters.
Nonsense. Voters passed constitutional amendments in 2015 and 2018 demanding their representatives draw fair maps. The Ohio GOP, in essence, said, fat chance and continues to draw maps that solidify their gerrymandered power,
LaRose’s effort is like trying to spray air freshener over a pile of cow dung. You can try it, but it still stinks to high heaven.
The first attempt at opposition fell flat when Gov. Mike DeWine lambasted Issue 1 as gerrymandering under a different name.
(Insert dramatic pause for eye-rolling)
That’s a weak position that argues voters should keep the dominant-party gerrymandering Ohioans don’t want. Understanding that, LaRose has decided to take a sledgehammer to fairness by purposely twisting what the issue does.
Remember — this is the same LaRose who sits on the current redistricting commission that passed illegally gerrymandered maps. LaRose also chairs the Ohio Ballot Board, which approves the language for proposed amendments and initiatives.
So, let’s recap: LaRose helped approve gerrymandering, then his office crafted the misleading ballot language passed by the ballot board’s Republican majority.
Smell that?
Citizens Not Politicians, the group spearheading Issue 1, has filed a lawsuit against the ballot language. It says the amendment description “may be the most biased, inaccurate, deceptive, and unconstitutional ballot language ever adopted by the Ohio Ballot Board.”
LaRose’s office claims the amendment would:
· Repeal constitutional protections against gerrymandering. That’s rich since lawmakers have used gerrymandering as their constitutional right to protect their own interests.
· Require the commission to immediately create new legislative and congressional districts in 2025 to replace the most recent districts adopted by the citizens of Ohio through their elected representatives. That’s also interesting because citizens didn’t adopt those districts. Lawmakers did with the express purpose of ignoring the will of the voters.
· Establish a new taxpayer-funded commission of appointees required to manipulate the boundaries of state legislative and congressional districts to favor the two largest political parties in the state of Ohio. That’s fishy because the GOP draws districts to keep ONE party in power — Republicans.
The GOP doesn’t have a case to stop approval that will resonate with voters. The party didn’t last year when voters approved two amendments Republicans fought hard against — abortion and legalizing marijuana.
This year is more of the same. The party can’t claim to be the champion of the people (not on this issue, anyway). It can’t claim it stands for fairness. It can’t even claim that passing the amendment would result in a left-wing socialist takeover of the government since the GOP should retain the statehouse majority, though not a veto-proof one. (Most analyses show with fair maps, Republicans should keep about 56% of seats in Columbus).
Moreover, DeWine wants voters to reject Issue 1 so he can work with lawmakers to pass a plan modeled after Iowa, which has safeguards in place to ensure fairness.
Iowa does have a solid plan. But why would the Ohio legislature work with a governor who wants to take away their power? Just as lawmakers ignored DeWine’s calls for common sense safety proposals after the Oregon District shooting, they’ll ignore him on restricting, too.
With no strong argument, LaRose relies on devious lies.
The people won’t fall for it.
They have noses.
They can smell the stink.
Ray Marcano’s column appears on these pages each Sunday.
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