Ohio voices heard on redistricting
Residents throughout Ohio traveled to Lima Thursday to ensure their voices were heard on the topic of redistricting.
The redistricting commission members heard public comment for more than three hours, in advance of the Sept. 1 deadline to submit state legislative district maps. The comments were varied. Ann Shroyer of Westerville said the north part of Westerville has been attached to blocks of rural Ohio and divides them from the rest of the city.
The Westerville area has two different state senators, even though it is an area of 12.7 square miles.
“The importance of fairly-drawn districts cannot be overstated,” Shroyer said.
She said with gerrymandering the true constituents become the donors and lobbyists.
She compared the Westerville situation to Wapakoneta, where the 82nd legislative district in included in the city limits, but the city is surrounded by the 84th district.
“The pool I swam in for in high school just to the east of town is in the 84th, the pool the kids swim in now is in the 82nd in town. St. Joseph’s Catholic Church is in the 82nd downtown. St. Joseph’s Cemetery is in the 84th. You can attend church and then once you die you go to a different state legislative district,” Shroyer said.
She also pointed out that St. Marys and Grand Lake St. Marys are in two different districts.
“There is this nice little hug around St. Marys and Wapak for some reason,” Shroyer said. “The gerrymandering of this area doesn’t even make much political sense. This broad region is predominantly farmland and conservative. Maybe this area was sliced and diced just for sport, or practice for the main event of slicing and dicing their cit
ies in Ohio.”
Moving on, Shroyer called the 4th Congressional District a “duckshaped blight on democracy.
“Ninety percent of Ohioans, including 87 percent of gun owners in Ohio, approve of universal background checks, yet this gerrymandered state legislature has made no movement on passing it, even after the Dayton shooting because the majority have major donors in the gun lobby,” Shroyer said.
She noted lawmakers were willing to pass a ‘stand your ground’ bill last December at the height of COVID-19 deaths in the state. Shroyer said the bill protects shooters and that the only proponent was a gun lobbying group.
She demanded a transparent and fair process for drawing redistricting lines.
David Smith of Lima said past practice doesn’t make it right, using a woman’s right to vote, unequal pay for similar work and slavery as examples of changes that needed to happen despite the tradition.
“There’s no excuse for districts like the duck or the snake. Remember absolute power corrupts absolutely,” Smith said. “Do the right thing.”
Mindy Hedges said her lawmakers are too focused on money and major population growth areas, not farming communities.
“Consideration has not been given to problems in our area like internet services, which are very spotty and inconsistent, or emergency services or aid for senior living,” Hedges said. “We are isolated in our area just as we are isolated in our representation. We don’t feel as though we have any representation because our district is so gerrymandered.”
Hedges said it appeared state legislators were more concerned with
how much money they could collect for their next election rather than what constituents want or need.
“Most of Ohio’s districts were artfully designed,” Hedges said. “They no longer have to be competitive or compliant to their constituents, nor serve the people of their districts.”
She said more than 70 percent of Ohioans voted for redistricting, and claimed people are leaving Ohio in part because of partisan gerrymandering.
“Many of us will be submitting maps that take into account the issues I mentioned,” Hedges said.
Barbara Gant of East Liberty lives in the 85th House District, the 12th Senate District and 4th Congressional district.
“In my county all of our districts, both the federal, congressional and state district, have been effectively drawn to favor current incumbents and members of one political party. This effectively means that legislators are choosing their voters instead of voters choosing their legislators,” she said.
Voting districts separate neighbors in strange ways, and combine parts of the state that are far away from each other.
She focused on the 4th Congressional District.
“I have a feeling that this could still come back to this commission to work on,” Gant said. “Congressional District 4 is a nationallyrecognized demonstration of gerrymandering meant to reflect the same person over and over.”
She said the duck shaped district discouraged challengers and voters as they feel the deck is stacked against them.
“It is particularly outrageous to me that the bill of the duck includes a couple correctional facilities with about 3,000 persons to pad the population of this district, but the persons used in this way cannot even vote because of their incarceration,” Gant said.
Shannon Freshour of Marysville, the Democratic nominee who represented the 4th district in the last election cycle, said she knew running in that district was “a task that I took on knowing full well I would lose, because of the extraordinary gerrymandering, which during the campaign was ruled unconstitutional.
“People here talk about gerrymandering from the voters’ perspective, but there is no possibility that a leader or representative can represent 14 not-contiguous parts of 14 non-contiguous counties,” Freshour said. She said this leads to precincts being ignored that are considered less valuable. “That’s wrong; that means people are not getting equal representation in this state, that is absolutely abhorrent,” she said.
She said this leads to high levels of corruption, citing the Larry Householder bribery scandal.
“He got re-elected because that gerrymandered district he was in, he wasn’t going to lose,” Freshour said. “Gerrymandering allows for absolute power.”
She also criticized the location of the redistricting meetings.
“This process is gerrymandered,” Freshour said.
Scott Grenerth of Arlington said gerrymandering creates an environment for extreme candidates. Grenerth, a poll worker, sought to advocate for free and fair elections.
Robert Coon of Lima, president of Local Town 2, a union for Lima city employees, asked the panel members to take a stand.
“I would like to ask all of you if you would commit on the record to end gerrymandering,” Coon said.
He pointed out that the 4th District is 232 miles wide but that other districts are 66 miles wide.
“Bob (Rep. Cupp, R-Lima), you’re from Lima. Matt (Sen. Huffman, R-Lima) you are from Lima. I really want to trust that you guys are going to do the right thing,” Coon
said.
“We are hear to listen today, so I appreciate your input,” Cupp said. He also appreciated the challenge to do the right thing, but did not otherwise make a commitment.
Karen Vroman of Bluffton said she lives in “the duck by the snake on the lake.” She noted that gerrymandering allows for decades and decades to go by without political change. She said the Republican supermajority in the Ohio House and Senate is not reflective of the total number of voters.
Chuck Sherlow of Lima said gerrymandering was like picking the score for a football game.
“There should not be this glaring discrepancy,” He said.
Lisa Robeson of Bluffton talked about her work to get the redistricting reform on the ballot, explaining that once people understood what gerrymandering was they were willing to sign.
She called District 4 “the elephant in the room” and asked legislators to honor the letter and the spirit of the Ohio constitution.
Jeff Sites of Lima is another Democratic candidate for the 4th district. He said the gerrymandered districts have become a national joke.
“The joke is getting old,” Sites said.
He expressed his frustrations with Congressman Jim Jordan.
I’m frustrated we have to watch cable news to hear from our congressman,” Sites said. Sites said Ohioans made it clear at the ballot box they want new districts and he wants to know soon where he will need to go to beat Jim Jordan.
Jen Miller of the Ohio League of Women Voters said that every Ohioan deserves a map that fairly represents them and that gerrymandering fuels polarization. She criticized lawmakers for only limiting input to a week and not asking for it before they had Census data.