August 8, 2023 the gerrymandered Republican super-majority in the Ohio Statehouse decided to waste about $20M of the taxpayers money to hold a single issue referendum. Not a damn one of them will be held liable for this boondoggle.

Issue 1, was an attempt to make it impossible for citizens to initiate a referendum or to change the State Constitution on their own. It was being pushed in August to try to subvert the November referendum to add abortion rights into the Ohio Constitution. Issue 1, had it passed, would have required a 60% win to pass a constitutional change- and upped the requirement for signatures from 5% of 44 counties to 5% of 87 of 88 counties- and eliminate the 10 day period to cure bad signatures.

What’s even worse, was they pushed another $30M or so of political spending from both sides to basically, just piss off everyone. There is no question that this issue was divisive- and is just a clear indication of the Republican strategy to divide our nation over every damn thing. The urban counties came out against changing the constitution and the rural counties were all for it.

With $50M wasted, nothing has changed- except we all now know how divided our state is- and how, the gerrymandering has the majority of Ohioan’s underrepresented in the State House.

While we voted both in 2015 and 2018 to end gerrymandering, as of the last Congressional and Statehouse races, zero progress has been made. What’s worse, is the Ohio Democratic Party has been totally ineffective in coordinating campaigns and backing candidates. It’s not that the Republican party doesn’t have it’s own problems (Larry Householder), it’s that the Koch brothers and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) directed changes back in the late 90’s that are difficult to undo.

Supposedly, before the 2024 congressional primary, the redistricting is supposed to happen. Considering the Ohio Supreme Court is now solidly Republican (since Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, a free thinking R, was aged out), the likely hood of implementation is still iffy.

However, looking at OH-10, for which I was the Dem Candidate in 2022, the Counties of Greene and Clark were 50-50 splits on Issue 1 and Montgomery County was decisively progressive with an unofficial 60.84% against.

This should be a good building block for the Dems to try to take back the House of Representatives, but, thanks to the Montgomery County Dem party- they will undermine the choice of the people if the candidate isn’t one of their friends and family plan members.

The amount of money that was spent on Issue 1 last week, will be upped to new levels on the abortion issue in November. Also look for record turnout in an off-year election. If the Democratic party had adult leadership, they’d take the pro-choice message to the streets- and use it to build an up to date database of voters who’ve had enough of the Republican dog-whistle issue baiting.

There are plenty of things a properly organized Dem party could be pushing, like universal health care, ending Citizens United, affordable higher education, anti-usury laws that protect the people not the banks and Wall Street, simplified tax codes, responsible gun ownership, living wages, ranked choice voting, doing away with the electoral college, age limits on public office- including judges the list goes on.

And just remember, just because issue 1 failed, there’s nothing stopping the R’s from trying this again, and again, and again. Remember- they want to “make America great again” as if we can’t do something better in the future?