Those of us who worked for passage five years ago of State Issue 4, the gerrymandering reform amendment, are getting a bit weary of Republican Jon Husted's hand-wringing on the issue.
Husted, a state senator from Kettering currently running for Ohio Secretary of State, is quoted in today's Dispatch as lamenting -- once again -- that "there just doesn't seem to be the will from enough Democrats and Republicans to get this done."
Husted became a born-again believer in gerrymandering reform beginning in 2006 - after doing everything he could to defeat a proposed fix placed the ballot by public interest groups in November, 2005. At that time, he explained he was all for leveling the partisan playing field when it comes to the drawing of legislative districts. He just didn't like how the Issue 4 plan went about it.
"'I can agree to drawing districts in a more fair and balanced manner. I just don't agree with the way this amendment attempts to do that,'' said Ohio House Speaker Jon A. Husted , a Kettering Republican.
This month, Husted went to Washington to confer with Ohio's 12-member GOP House delegation and the Republican National Committee, but he denied planning campaign and fund-raising strategies to defeat the amendment."
(Dispatch June 26, 2005)
LICOPAC, which had just organized that spring, worked hard with other public interest groups around the state to gather hundreds of thousands of petition signatures to put Issue 4 and several companion amendments before the voters. But intense Republican opposition -- combined with Democratic Party disinterest -- resulted in a one-sided "Vote No" campaign and voter rejection that November.
Husted, opposed to the citizen initiative, was under the impression the Ohio General Assembly could do a better job. He was wrong in 2006. And 2007. And 2008. And 2009.
And now, according to today's report, redistricting reform is once again dead in the assembly for 2010.
"Another year of talking and removing politics from the processing of drawing congressional and legislative districts has come and gone," reports the Dispatch. "Once again, nothing has changed."
The Dispatch, it should be noted, has likewise been championing gerrymandering reform (and Husted) since 2006 - after opposing Issue 4 editorially in 2005.
As Sarah Bear would say, "Gerrymandering reform by the Ohio General Assembly - How's that workin' out for Ya!"
-- David Lore
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