Special Delivery.…To End Gerrymandering
Thank you!! 731,000 Signatures To Fire the Politicians from the Ohio Districting Process
Yesterday, I wrote that amidst disturbing Court decisions and dysfunctional debates, we MUST keep moving forward to lift democracy at all levels, and everywhere. The battle never stops—so if we stop, democracy loses.
And moving forward to protect democracy is exactly what Ohioans are doing this week….Check it out…
No more than two hours after Monday’s outrageous Supreme Court decision, U-Haul trucks pulled up to the Ohio Secretary of State’s Office.
And what were they hauling?
Pages and pages of petitions.
Enough pages to hold 731,000(!) Ohio signatures, which represent 731,000 Ohio voters demanding that we fire the politicians from the districting process, and replace them with citizens…
And that we finally end the scourge of partisan gerrymandering in this state, and all the damage and extremism that results from it.
731,000 Ohioans already on board! That’s a big chunk of the Ohio electorate, and should well surpass the number of signatures required to be on the ballot.
And we’re just getting started.
Beyond the signatures themselves, hundreds more showed up at the Ohio statehouse—the site where the unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering keeps taking place (along with secret rooms behind closed doors). It’s also the site where the extremism that results from gerrymandered districts plays out every day.
And these hundreds of citizens showed up to send the most corrupt Statehouse in America a simple message: in five months, we will fire you from the districting process. Time and again, you’ve shown yourselves incapable of shouldering the responsibility of shaping a fair democracy. Unable to follow the law. Unable to respect the will of the people you are supposed to represent. Unable to create a system where the politicians are accountable to us, the citizens.
You have failed. With the whole state watching, you failed.
So we, the citizens of Ohio, are firing you from the process, and we will do this important work instead. We trust ourselves more than we trust you. Citizens…not politicians.
Thank you to all who showed up to speak that truth to power.
So, Phase 1 is over. This enormous opportunity to move Ohio in a new direction will be on the ballot. Thank you to all who helped make it happen!
What’s next? Phase 2 , that’s what!
That’s when we take that base of 731,000 people, and the thousands of volunteers who got us to this point, and turn it into a broad, multi-million voter coalition that decisively votes to end partisan gerrymandering this November.
It turns out, firing politicians from the districting process is something that voters across the spectrum think is a good idea. But make no mistake: the corrupt statehouse GOP and their backers (who know they only thrive in a world of gerrymandering) will spend a lot of corrupt money trying to change that fact. This it their Holy Grail, and as we’ve already seen, they will pull out all the stops to confuse voters about what this is really about.
But if we work hard enough and smart enough, and repeat our simple and straightforward message, we can hold the line with all the Ohio voters who already agree with us. And that’s a strong, multi-partisan majority.
The people are on our side—we must keep it that way.
If you aren’t already helping in this effort, you can sign up to volunteer HERE. I’ll keep providing updates on how everyone can help.
Keep going!
Never stop fighting for democracy!
Please note that most of the people in those pictures are women. That seems to be the case in most of these grassroots efforts. I think SCOTUS has underestimated the power of angry women!
I helped gather signatures… I couldn’t be at the capitol, but I loved the photos. LFG!