If you are looking for proof that Ohio Republicans are scared silly over the prospect of the Citizens Not Politicians ballot issue being passed by voters in November, you don’t have to look far.
Exhibit A is the text of this meme from the Ohio Republican Party that you may have seen on Facebook or other social media platforms earlier this week.
The text, from an op-ed written by former Cincinnati mayor Ken Blackwell in The Columbus Dispatch, goes like this:
"Make no mistake; this isn’t citizens vs. politicians. This is politicians, essentially from one party, seeking to con citizens into enshrining gerrymandering into the Ohio Constitution."
In the days since the Ohio GOP rolled out this meme, the message has been repeated, nearly word-for-word, by dozens of Republican politicians at the state and county level.
Never mind that one of the lead proponents of the Citizens Not Politicians ballot issue is Maureen O'Connor, a retired chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, and a Republican.
The ballot issue scares the bejesus out of Ohio Republicans for one reason and one reason only: because its passage would take the process of drawing Ohio’s legislative district lines out of their hands and put it in the hands of a citizen-led panel.
ANALYSIS: Will 2024 be the year Ohio's GOP loses its grip on redistricting?
That threatens the dominance of Republicans in the Ohio General Assembly and their vise-grip on power they have had for the better part of the past 30 years.
If the Citizens Not Politicians issue is approved by voters, It could spell the end of the GOP’s veto-proof supermajority in the Ohio legislature.
That’s the real fear at GOP HQ.
It also explains why, in a recent Ohio Ballot Board meeting called to approve the ballot language, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, rammed through ballot language that proponents claimed would distort the meaning of the issue.
LaRose’s ballot language says the amendment would eliminate “the longstanding ability of Ohio citizens to hold their representatives accountable for establishing fair state legislative and congressional districts,” and would “repeal constitutional protections against gerrymandering approved by nearly three-quarters of Ohio electors participating in the statewide elections of 2015 and 2018.”
A Republican board member, State Sen. Theresa Gavarone of Bowling Green, re-wrote the ballot language to say the proposed amendment would “establish a new taxpayer-funded commission of appointees required to gerrymander the boundaries of state legislative and congressional districts to favor either of the two largest political parties in the state of Ohio.”
Of course, the GOP-dominated ballot board approved the language on a 3-2 party line vote.
RELATED: Some Black former lawmakers oppose Issue 1, breaking with most other Ohio Democrats
LaRose defended the language in his summary by saying the amendment would “limit the right of Ohio citizens to freely express their opinions to members of the commission or to commission staff regarding the redistricting process or proposed redistricting plan.”
Citizens Not Politicians, the coalition of voting rights groups which gathered over half-a-million signatures to place the issue on the ballot, filed suit before the Ohio Supreme Court challenging the re-written ballot language.
The court, with its 4-3 Republican majority, needs to resolve this quickly because ballots go out to Ohio’s military and overseas voters Sept. 20.
In one way, it doesn’t matter what the Ohio Supreme Court does with LaRose’s changes to the ballot language.
Even if it is approved, the underlying substance of the issue remains intact.
What the ballot issue would do is fairly simple — it would take the power to draw legislative district lines out of the hands of elected officials of either party and give it to a 15 member citizens commission, chosen by a bipartisan panel of retired judges.
The 15-member commission would be made up of five Democrats, five Republicans, and five non-affiliated voters — none of whom would be present or past elected officials, party officials or lobbyists.
They would hold hearings, seek testimony, consider various proposals for maps and then choose one that a majority of the commission could agree on.
RELATED: Backers of redistricting amendment sue Republican-run panel over ballot language
Proponents of the ballot issue say their main job between now and Election Day is making sure voters know they need to vote “yes,” whether LaRose is successful in changing the ballot language or not.
Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters Ohio, said proponents will run a “neighbor-to-neighbor campaign to make sure people know to vote ‘yes.’ ”
“Ohio voters should not be duped by this campaign by the opponents to confuse the issue,” said Miller, whose organization is part of the Citizens Not Politicians coalition.
“I have great faith in the people of Ohio. In the end, they will see through this deception.”
