{"id":7365,"date":"2024-09-23T07:16:25","date_gmt":"2024-09-23T11:16:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/?p=7365"},"modified":"2024-09-23T07:16:27","modified_gmt":"2024-09-23T11:16:27","slug":"corruption-in-the-heart-of-it-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2024\/09\/23\/corruption-in-the-heart-of-it-all\/","title":{"rendered":"Corruption In the Heart of It All"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Boring Ohio<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Ohio has a reputation as a \u201cboring\u201d state, where nothing big ever happens. In the heat of the current social-media Presidential crisis in Springfield, Ohio\u2019s leadership acts like they’re trying to do the right thing.\u00a0\u00a0Even Governor DeWine has found courage in his lame duckness.\u00a0\u00a0His career is over, with nothing more to win. So he can stand and scold the Trump\/Vance ticket without fear of retribution.\u00a0\u00a0In two years, he\u2019ll be retired to his country estate in Cedarville, a rural college village just ten miles south of Springfield.\u00a0\u00a0And he still supports Trump, so he can show up at the local diner for lunch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in reality, Ohio is one of the most corrupt states in the Union.\u00a0\u00a0Behind the fa\u00e7ade of big rust-belt cities and gentle cornfields, the politics of Ohio is all about money and power.\u00a0\u00a0The former Speaker of the State House of Representatives took a $60 million bribe from an energy company.\u00a0\u00a0That\u2019s not the worst of it. While almost every State Republican politician was involved, they were all more than happy to let that Speaker stand alone in Federal Court (he\u2019s now serving a twenty year sentence).\u00a0\u00a0The two other Party leaders legally snared in the scandal did \u201cthe right thing\u201d for their party.\u00a0\u00a0They committed suicide.\u00a0\u00a0And that\u2019s only the tip of the iceberg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Power Corrupts<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

 Not to be too partisan, but corruption is endemic to the Republican Party.  That\u2019s not because Democrats can\u2019t be corrupt.  It\u2019s simply that the state government is so overwhelmingly Republican, that Democrats don\u2019t stand a chance of \u201cbellying up\u201d to the money bar.  Democrats in the state legislature are forced to choose which side of the Republican agenda to support:  extreme or extremely extreme.  The Democrats talk a good game, but they are powerless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a political axiom:  \u201cPower corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely\u201d.  If you need to see that in action, come to Ohio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Politically Ohio is (at most) 55% Republican, 45% Democrat.\u00a0\u00a0Yet the state legislature is overwhelmingly Republican, with 66% of the House seats, and 79% of the State Senate seats in Republican hands.\u00a0\u00a0Sure, it\u2019s a veto-proof majority.\u00a0\u00a0 But no need to worry about vetoes. The Governor is also Republican, along with all of the other state-wide elected executives .\u00a0\u00a0And the State Supreme Court is split four Republicans to three Democrats.\u00a0\u00a0If that\u2019s not enough power; the Governor\u2019s son is one of the Supreme Judges; a Republican, of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gerrymandering<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The foundation of Republican power is the ability to draw the state legislative districts.  As long as they can draw the map, they can control the state legislature.  Newsweek <\/em>rates Ohio as the third most \u201cgerrymandered\u201d state in the Nation, behind West Virginia and Wisconsin. (Newsweek<\/a>).  So it\u2019s not a surprise that Republicans will do almost anything to hold onto that precious ability to decide who votes in what legislative district.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gerrymandering is nothing new.  In fact, the name itself came from 1812, when the Governor of Massachusetts, Elbridge Gerry, drew a district that looked like a salamander \u2013 a \u201cGerrymander\u201d the newspapers called it.   It\u2019s a straight-forward process.  Divide the state so that one particular party\u2019s voters are maximized, and the other party is minimized.  Either give the weaker party a few concentrated districts, or split up and dilute concentrations of opposition strength into multiple districts.  In Ohio that becomes a few overwhelmingly Democratic districts, then a lot of \u201cpie slice\u201d districts, where urban\/Democrat areas find themselves diluted by huge swaths of rural\/Republican areas.  And, of course, there are the remaining Republican areas, too far from any Democrats to matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the Map<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A quick example is Ohio\u2019s 15th<\/sup>\u00a0Congressional District.\u00a0\u00a0It stretches from the Republican suburbs of Dayton, around but excluding the Democratic areas of Springfield, then continues to pick up the Democratic west and south sides of Columbus.\u00a0\u00a0It then extends far south to include Chillicothe and all of the countryside in between.\u00a0\u00a0The District is nearly 100 miles east to west and 100 miles north to south, carefully diluting Democratic pockets with large swathes of Republican countryside.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s a great example of Gerrymandering reducing the power of one party and enhancing the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Trivia Question:  what does the west side of the City of Cincinnati and the village of Ansonia, a farm community in Western Ohio more than a hundred miles north, have in common? Not much, except the same Congressman.  Both \u201ctowns\u201d are in the 8th<\/sup> Congressional District).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Extremists Win<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Besides creating super-majorities in the legislatures, gerrymandering also makes the primary election the only one that really counts.\u00a0\u00a0In most districts here in Ohio, whether a Republican or a Democrat will win the general election is seldom in question.\u00a0\u00a0Who will represent the majority party in that election; that\u2019s selected in the primary.\u00a0\u00a0And since primary voters are usually more motivated and partisan than general election voters, the majority party often selects the more extreme candidate over moderate ones.\u00a0\u00a0All that means\u00a0\u00a0that the legislature is not only loaded, but also extreme; elected by the few Party voters rather than the majority of voters closer to the \u201cmiddle\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ohioans look to two institutions to reform re-districting.\u00a0\u00a0First, Ohio has an \u201cinitiative\u201d process. Citizens can place a State Constitutional Amendment directly up for a vote, bypassing the legislature.\u00a0\u00a0In both 2015 and 2018, re-districting reform was passed by better than 70%.\u00a0\u00a0However, the state legislature and executives failed to follow those amendments, and the state remains skewed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scofflaws<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

When the Amendments were ignored, reformers went to the state Supreme Court for help.  And for a while, even though the Court was four Republicans to three Democrats, the Republican Chief Justice Maureen O\u2019Connor sided with Democratic Justices and reformers.  Unfortunately, Republican legislators and executives chose to ignore the Court rulings, and Gerrymandering continued.   Then Justice O\u2019Connor was age-limited out of the Court.  Now the four Republicans rubber-stamp their fellow partisans in the other branches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So Justice O\u2019Connor led a reform movement herself, one to take re-districting completely out of the hands of career politicians.  Her proposal establishes a non-politician board, divided evenly among Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.  That board would follow a carefully written mandate to re-district based on community and county boundaries, maximizing competitive districts.  This was written into a proposed State Constitutional Amendment, and will appear as \u201cIssue One\u201d this November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Flip the Script<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The State Elections Board is chaired by the Secretary of State, Republican Frank LaRose, and dedicated to the gerrymandered status quo.  The Board gets to write the \u201cballot language\u201d that will appear to every voter.  Even though Issue One supporters got over a half a million registered voter signatures on carefully worded petitions, the Elections Board literally flipped the script.  In a two column, ten point \u201cexplanation\u201don every ballot, the Election Board describes the Issue as a “Gerrymandering Amendment”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n