Renacci Lies on Redistricting, or Why You Need to Vote YES on Issue 2
Submitted by Anastasia Pantsios on Thu, 10/11/2012 - 9:36pm.
In the previous post, Derek alluded to congressman Jim Renacci's insistence that he had no involvement in the redistricting that led to the elimination of congresswoman Betty Sutton's district and pitted the two incumbents against each other.
Oh – what's this:
(Heather Mann is a GOP operative who works for the Ohio House Republicans.)
Now, I'm sure there could be some perfectly innocent reason why Renacci requested information on where the pieces of Betty's old district landed. I am racking my brain, and I just can't think what it might be, though. Can anyone help me?
This is a prime example of how corrupt Ohio's current process of redistricting is, where the party who wins certain offices in the census year gets all the power to do whatever mischief they choose, and sitting congressmen have input in who they want their voters to be to make their reelection easier.
The Republicans, in their desperation to hang onto their lopsided map, have put out a bunch of lies and distortions about what Issue 2 aka Voters First Ohio — which would take redistricting power away from politicians and put it in the hands of a nonpartisan citizens commission with no political stake in the results — would do. Unfortunately, I have heard too many people say things like "We need change but Issue 2 is flawed."
That's hooey. While maybe not perfect — because no solution is — Issue 2 is an elegantly crafted solution to the fatally flawed system we have now where the interests of politicians like Renacci are put before the interests of the tens of thousands of people living in those shards of Betty Sutton's old district.
Sadly, because of the GOP's blatant lies and manipulative tactics, such as writing confusing, lengthy, and off-putting ballot language, and the unfocused and indirect campaign of Voters First Ohio, it will probably lose and lose badly. Then the GOP will spend the next decade proposing bandaids like Jon Husted's idea of expanding the size of the redistricting panel — more politicians! – and requiring some minority buy-in on any map. And if they lose those key offices in 2020, look for Ohio Republicans to suddenly think the Voters First Ohio amendment is just the best thing they have ever heard of.
If you'd like to help Voters First Ohio, go here:
