Citizens Not Politicians Petition: Stop Gerrymandering

The Toledo Blade | Jim Provance | Posted 8.02.2024

The Ohio Ballot Board will be meeting on Friday, August 16, 2024, to write the language that voters will see on the General Election ballot, November 5, describing a proposed constitutional amendment that would overhaul how congressional and state legislative districts are drawn.

However, Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) won’t be in attendance. A U.S. Army Reservist, he is on duty at Fort Liberty in North Carolina. His role as board chairman will be filled by former Ohio Senate President Larry Obhof, a Medina Republican whom LaRose recently named as his chief legal counsel and deputy assistant secretary of state.

The 3-2 Republican-majority panel is tasked with providing a synopsis of a lengthy proposed amendment that voters will see at the polls and on absentee ballots. That language is supposed to provide “the substance of the proposal” and then ask voters to mark either “yes” or no.”

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Citizens Not Politicians | Posted 7.04.2024

According to an article posted on the organization who submitted the petitions: Republican Gov. Mike DeWine called on Ohio voters to reject the voter-proposed “Citizens Not Politicians” ballot issue that will appear on November’s statewide ballot even though DeWine is on record as saying politicians shouldn’t be the deciders in drawing Ohio’s congressional and General Assembly districts.

DeWine instead wants voters to adopt a plan like Iowa’s General Assembly adopted in 1980. It requires Iowa’s equivalent of Ohio’s non-partisan Legislative Service Commission to draw Iowa’s congressional and legislative seats, then win the Iowa legislature’s OK of those districts. According to PolitiFact, Iowa law says, “legislative maps cannot be redrawn with the intent of favoring a political party, incumbent state legislator or member of Congress.”

DeWine’s gripe with Ohio’s proposed “Citizens Not Politicians” plan is that it would, he says, require “proportionality”: That in turn would lead to splitting populations with common needs and interests (a given county, city, village or township) diluting a community’s Statehouse oomph.

Proportionality is a $5 word that means the percentage of Ohio General Assembly seats that political party wins should roughly match that party’s share of Ohio’s statewide vote.

Example: In 2020, Republican Donald Trump drew about 53% of Ohio’s vote. Theoretically, “proportionality” would seemingly require that 53% (or 52) of Ohio’s 99 state House districts favor Republicans. (Instead, under now-GOP-drawn districts, Republicans hold 67 of the House’s seats and 27 seats in the 33-seat Ohio Senate.)

Current results, in Iowa, of the Iowa plan that DeWine applauded: In 2020, Donald Trump drew 53% of Iowa’s statewide presidential vote. Current makeup of the Iowa General Assembly: Iowa House, 64% Republican; Iowa Senate, 68% Republican. That’s fair?

 

to everyone who stopped by during our
Drive Thru Petition Signing events
to end gerrymandering in Ohio!

413,000 valid signatures
need to be collected across the state.
Because hundreds of thousands more
signatures have been collected than needed,
petitions will be submitted early!

Then begins the education process to
ensure Ohioans know why voting
on this issue is so important!

As soon as ballot language is available,
it will be posted!


to UAW 913 for permitting signing events at the
UAW 913 Union Hall Parking Lot
3114 Hayes Avenue | Sandusky 44870

Petitions have been returned to Columbus.
Citizens Not Politicians (CNP) will be submitting
all petitions/signatures to Ohio Secretary of State
no later than July 1st.

For additional Information about the Citizens Not Politicians Petition:

ARTICLES: