Michael Nyerges / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
Once in a great while, what happens at the bottom of the ballot can reshape a state’s political future for decades to come.
While New Yorkers on Election Day will vote on the controversial “Equal Rights Amendment,” Ohio is ground zero for an effort to wrest control away from the people and give it to unelected, Fauci-like bureaucrats to achieve “redistricting reform.”
And the movement is anything but organic: It’s an out-of-state (and even international) attempt by left-wing politicians to trick voters into rewriting our state constitution by passing Issue 1.
The ballot measure — masterminded by the likes of Barack Obama’s former Attorney General Eric Holder and Democrat election lawyer Marc Elias and bankrolled by over $20 million in dark money from leftist megadonors including George Soros and Hansjörg Wyss — would push Ohio away from representative government for purely partisan Democratic gain.
And if it passes, it won’t stop in Ohio, but will become a blueprint for the rest of the nation.
Holder’s National Democratic Redistricting Committee is trying to fundamentally shift power away from the democratically elected voices of the people and toward a small unaccountable group that’s elected by no one.
The Ohio Constitution states, “All political power is inherent in the people.” That forms the basis for our current redistricting process, which relies on elected representatives to create maps for congressional and state-legislature districts.
Under that process — adopted in 2015 with bipartisan backing and over 70% support at the ballot box — Ohio’s state legislature selects two Republicans and two Democrats to join three statewide elected officials (governor, secretary of state and auditor) for this crucial work.
Importantly, Ohioans chose not to hand this vital task to unelected bureaucrats.
But under Issue 1’s byzantine procedures, ex-judges and an outside recruitment firm would draw up a list of 45 supposedly non-partisan applicants for a new 15-member redistricting panel.
Six names from the list would be randomly chosen, and those six would then pick the remaining nine members.
Instead of merit and a popular mandate, sheer luck — or worse, backroom cronyism — would be deployed to get a seat on the panel.
These unelected, taxpayer-funded commissioners could only be removed by their colleagues, even if they engaged in gross misconduct or criminal acts. Citizens of Ohio be damned.
The result: A panel that could act with impunity, and without any accountability. A group of 15 Fauci-style bureaucrats would determine how Ohio draws its districts — a coup for “experts” to defeat the will of citizens.
Moreover, Issue 1 cuts right to the heart of our core constitutional liberty: freedom of speech.
According to the ballot proposal, “No person shall attempt to contact any member or members of the commission . . . with the intent to influence the redistricting process or . . . outcomes other than through designated public meetings or official commission portals.”
In practice, this is a severe restriction on Ohioans’ freedom of expression.
Citizens could only weigh in on the board’s proposals by waiting hours to speak for a couple of minutes at a public meeting (possibly hundreds of miles away), or by submitting a digital comment that may never be read.
If you happened to know a commissioner and sent her an email, or if you made a suggestion when you met her in a local supermarket, you would be in violation of the Ohio Constitution and would be reported to the Commission — giving the Buckeye State the look and feel of a George Orwell novel.
That’s not a problem under current law, under which everyone is free to talk to legislators and statewide elected officers.
But Issue 1’s bureaucrats, like most nameless and faceless functionaries, are to be “protected” from the very people they are supposed to serve.
Finally, Issue 1 imposes a tight 10-day window for legal challenges to be filed — a severe limit on due process if citizens wish to challenge issues like racial gerrymandering and other constitutional violations.
Under Issue 1, citizens don’t get a say in who draws new district maps. If you want to weigh in and express concern, you’re restricted in how you can say it. And if you want to challenge the final decision, even your due process is curtailed.
It all adds up to a constitutional subterfuge that takes power away from the voters.
And maybe Eric Holder is afraid of Ohio voters. After all, Ohioans have elected Republican supermajorities in both chambers of their General Assembly.
On Election Day, it’s vital for Ohioans to stop Issue 1 in its tracks — or red-state voters across the country could soon face the same deceptive ploy.
Vivek Ramaswamy is an Ohio-based business leader and New York Times best-selling author.