Copping to Abuse of Power

Plus, Day 45: The Senate Fails Its First Step

It was obvious in the latter half of last year that the goal of the Ohio GOP and its elected leaders was to confuse Ohio voters—the strong majority of whom desire to end gerrymandering—about how to do so.

Ohioans are sick and tired of gerrymandering. Which is why the two measures to curb gerrymandering passed overwhelmingly (70-30) in 2015 and 2018, and why Issue 1 (which would've ended gerrymandering) was overwhelmingly popular in the polls for most of the 2024 campaign.

The GOP knows this.

So, desperate to thwart the will of Ohioans who had a chance to end gerrymandering last November, they spent the entire Fall convincing Ohioans that to end gerrymandering, they should vote NO on the measure known as Issue 1. Voting yes, they lied, would create gerrymandering.

Yardsigns, TV ads, mailers, you name it—all said, “Vote No to Ban Gerrymandering.”

Can you imagine being an Ohio voter, and seeing dueling yardsigns everywhere—one yardsign telling you “Vote Yes on 1 to End Gerrymandering,” next to a sign in the next yard saying “Vote No on 1 to End Gerrymandering?” That was the scene all across Ohio from September to election day.

Head-spinning, right? (And we know that when voters are confused, they vote no).

This week, the GOP chair finally admitted, publicly, what was clear to all of us who know that Ohioans want to end gerrymandering: the entire goal was simply to confuse voters from voting the way they actually intended to vote.

It was to thwart the will of the voters.

Here’s how this chair explained the strategy in a recent speech, reliving the campaign:

“A lot of people were saying, ‘We’re confused! We’re confused by Issue 1.’ Did you all hear that? Confusion means we don’t know, so we did our job,” Triantafilou said. “Confusing Ohioans was not such a bad strategy.”

Sickening. Disgraceful.

But here’s the thing.

The lies that were told to confuse people were not just carried on yard signs and TV ads and mailers.

The same lies—this chair’s admitted strategy to sow “confusion”—also played out through official government acts.

The ballot language itself was written to sow confusion. Instructing voters that voting “Yes” would create gerrymandering. Leaving the impression that “No” would stop gerrymandering.

And the now-partisan Ohio Supreme Court wrote an opinion that not only allowed that ballot language to stand, but further sowed confusion in how it defended that dishonest language—an opinion which this chair immediately cited as part of the campaign that he now admits was designed to confuse voters.

The weaopizing of government itself to legitimate the GOP’s “confusion” strategy elevated what was a dishonest and cynical political campaign into something far worse: the raw abuse of government power.

Government institutions and functions were harnessed by those in gerrymandered power to confuse the citizens, in the very process where citizens are tasked with shaping the powers and restrictions of that government, and the very officials who abused power.

That is as corrupt and broken as it gets.

We will never stop fighting to fix this.

And now we have the Ohio GOP Chair’s own words as the best evidence of their willingness to abuse power to serve themselves.

….

Now, why are they so desperate to gerrymander? Stories like the following make it clear:

Ohio School Factoid

Monday, I wrote about the latest attack on Ohio public schools by the gerrymandered GOP majority in the statehouse. Newly sworn-in Speaker Huffman declared that the state can’t afford to fully and constitutionally fund Ohio public schools.

Which reminds me of a datapoint I shared some months back:

The amount of money diverted to pay for the new universal private school vouchers (which largely fund the tuition of students who were already attending private school and could afford that private school) last year is almost the EXACT SAME AMOUNT as the state shortfall in fully funding the bipartisan public school funding plan.

And that amount of money being diverted from meeting that obligtion will only grow, topping $1 billion.

They are playing a shell game, folks. Siphoning off a billion plus to serve certain interests, then crying poor when it comes to their Constitutional responsibility.

Public schools in every corner off Ohio are paying the price.

Here’s another datapoint: 0%. That’s the amount of additional state revenue going to students in public schools since 1997, adjusted for inflation.

They are bleeding public education dry.

Day 45 — January 14, 2025

Hours of hearings exposed numerous problems as to the fitness of Pete Hegseth to serve as US Secretary of Defense. His long and disturbing history of disqualifying personal and professional behavior have been well documented, as have many of his past statements ands writings about war crimes (which he seems to be OK with), banning women from combat, and criticism of NATO.

But his testimony yesterday also revealed so much: a lack of experience managing large organizations (he acknowledged managing 100 at most); basic knowledge of the role of the Defense Secretary and the world (he couldn’t name the countries of ASEAN); an unwillingness to commit to abiding by the Constitution when faced with illegal orders; and a refusal to commit to not “shoot[ing] protesters in the legs” if ordered to do so. The last question is not a hypothetical—in his first term, Trump asked his Secretary of Defense Mark Esper why US soldiers couldn’t shoot domestic protesters in the legs.

All indications are that Hegseth will be confirmed despite all these problems.

This is not a test of Pete Hegseth.

He’s already failed. Wholly unfit.

It is a test of the US Senate, and checks and balances.

And it now looks pretty clear that the GOP Senate will fail the test.

Donald Trump has run them all over.

The question is: how low will Trump have to go for the GOP majority to do its job?