What's Good with Redistricting

[00:00:02] What's Good Ohio? I'm your host James Hayes and this is the Whats Good Ohio podcast where we talk to the activists, organizers, visionaries and good treble makers coming together to make our state better for everyone. No exceptions. It's a new year and a new season

[00:00:31] of what's Good Ohio but I'm still joined by a road and bird from Policy Matters of Ohio. It's been a minute. What's good sir? Hello James. It is so good to be back for season 2. It's finally sunny today

[00:00:44] so that is exciting. We've had about a week of gray. We're filming this on February 1st so it's nice to see a little bit of sun. I agree with that. I agree with the how have you been? How was your like holidays

[00:00:56] in the year? How have you been since I was in this last year for me? The one thing I have realized of being a podcast host is that my life is so dramatically

[00:01:06] boring. I don't know if I'm really boring. I didn't go back to my family for Christmas. I'm not a big holiday person so mostly just a lot of reading and playing video games

[00:01:20] and hanging out with my cat if I'm being honest but I'm sure you had a lot more going on. You got little ones running around and all that good stuff. That's true. A bunch of video games my son is really into Kirby and so we've been

[00:01:36] playing that a lot which was a polish not of introduced that to him but you know you live in your learn. We had a great holiday as he is 3.5 years Felix says his name and he was able to really kind of grasp the concept of Santa Claus

[00:01:51] this year which I was fun to see and we had a lot of fun. We had a lot of fun and the calves you know I'm a big calves fan. The calves were doing really well and we had a big win

[00:02:01] against the the clipers last weekend so things are going well in my world, in my little corner of the world and excited for season 2 was a good Ohio and today we're going to be talking about redistricting and Jerry Mandering. Jerry Mandering is when politicians and

[00:02:16] lobbyists manipulate voting districts to protect their interests and guarantee their reelection right now Ohio is one of the most Jerry Manor states in the country over the last decade the right wing is pushed and extremist agenda to curtail voting rights

[00:02:31] take away reproductive freedom attack the queer and trans community exploit Ohio's natural resources and public lands privatized public education and all that has been enabled by the super majority Republicans enjoy it in the legislature. We'll get more into the history of why

[00:02:45] that isn't a bit we just know that even today Ohio's operating under maps deemed unconstitutional by the House Supreme Court. The activists are working on a solution to ensure fair maps once and for all. The citizens not politicians amendment would ban lobbyists and politicians from the

[00:03:02] redistricting process and instead empower voters to choose their politicians right now volunteers are in your communities collecting signatures to get the citizens not politicians amendment on the ballot this November. If you've ever been out of voting rights or redistricting rally at the

[00:03:19] state House you've probably been led in chance by the one and only me aluus a fearless activist me aluus is the associate director at Common Cazohio and is part of the Fair District's coalition

[00:03:30] and the citizens not politicians campaign welcome Mia. Hello thank you so much. I'm excited to any here. We're excited to have you so good to be talking with you Mia you know I first I think

[00:03:44] I first got to know you back in 2018 when you joined the Common Caz team helping to coordinate teams across the state pushing for a yes vote on the anti-during mandarin issue one back in 2018.

[00:03:56] I was wondering if you could tell us just a little bit how you got into this work what brought you into this fight. Yeah well I actually only moved to Ohio in 2011 and I did I was a kind of

[00:04:10] neighborhood team leader for Obama reelection in 2012 but my I was doing kind of freelance work so I had I had some time you know to do some volunteering and I think a lot of people after the 2016

[00:04:25] election were really really shaken up about our democracy and really wanting to do something to strengthen our democracy and the fair districts equals fair elections campaign that was like the redistricting campaign that was going on in 2017 and 2018 that felt like a really good place to put some energy

[00:04:45] and you know to bolster our system to make our system stronger to make it fairer to put guardrails on so that politicians couldn't cheat essentially. And so I was doing a lot of volunteering for that

[00:04:59] campaign and then eventually I just joined and came on board and started working for Common Caz to try to pass that ballot initiative. What's up? Can you give us a quick overview of how we got

[00:05:11] to this point in the state where we need to have a citizen's not politicians amendment? Yes for sure so we actually have been fighting for really good redistricting reform for decades in Ohio there've been multiple attempts you know 20 all the way back into the 80s actually but 2005

[00:05:32] 2012 finally in 2015 and 2018 there were two successful amendments that were added to the constitution to deal with both congressional and legislative redistricting. Unfortunately those were essentially compromises having failed a couple of times before trying to do citizens redistricting

[00:05:53] commission this was a compromise which included politicians elected officials as the ones who were drawing the maps and that was really all that was possible to get at the time. So we put that in

[00:06:06] and there really were some good new rules in those amendments that should have made a difference unfortunately the politicians in charge simply refused to follow the rules they simply refused to accept that they had to draw fair maps and they were incapable of drawing maps that abided

[00:06:24] by the rules of the constitution and that's why those maps were struck down multiple times by the Ohio Supreme Court the congressional map was struck down twice the Ohio House and

[00:06:34] Senate maps were struck down five times and then they just ran out the clock and they did all kinds of other things to ensure that they were able to keep the districts that they wanted. So

[00:06:44] essentially we tried really hard we did the best we could we got new laws in the books but those laws left the process in the hands of the politicians and so now we've realized we can't do

[00:06:57] that the only way to get fair districts is to completely remove politicians from the process. Yeah it sounds like the right move without a doubt you know earlier when I was buying my podcast

[00:07:10] my for season two we had to upgrade the sound heard that feedback. Now I was checking out in the young man who was I feel I feel old saying that the young man who was checking me out he

[00:07:24] asked what I did and you know I tried to tell him I work at Ohio voice you know I was like we have this podcast what's good Ohio you should check it out yet and I told him that we are

[00:07:34] going to be having an episode coming up about redistricting and asking if you knew what that was and he said no and I found myself how am I going to explain this issue to you and now I think I did

[00:07:43] my best you know in the short short amount of time we had that interaction but I was just wondering it's such an important issue but sometimes it's difficult to talk about and explain to people so

[00:07:54] I was wondering how would you explain Jerry Mandarin you were talking to somebody who's never heard about it you know if you were explaining it to a child a five year old even how would you

[00:08:03] describe this and then they? So you were talking about Santa Claus earlier and how Felix understood you know this was his first year to really kind of get what was going on with Santa Claus and I was

[00:08:13] thinking about this you know you guys asked me like how would you explain this to a five year old I was thinking what if you know the parents put a whole bunch of presents under the Christmas tree

[00:08:25] and there's a little girl in a little boy and the older brother decides he's going to take he's going to divide up the presents and he's going to take all the presents and he's going to give

[00:08:39] one little one to his sister that's basically Jerry Mandarin it's the politicians they want to have something to benefit dividing up the spoils instead of somebody else making the decision you know

[00:08:52] instead of the parent saying okay this is the fair way to divide these presents it's just the little boy just saying I want all of these and you can have that one that I don't want so that's kind

[00:09:03] of one way of explaining it there's a cartoon that's pretty good too that has two kids sitting at a table that's covered with treats candy chocolates cupcakes all kinds of good things and there's a

[00:09:15] little black girl and a little white boy and the white boy has a crayon and he's drawn a crayon around everything in the table except two things and he's going to give those two things to

[00:09:26] the little girl across from him but he's going to keep everything else for himself and so that's what it is it's when the people who have something to gain have the power to draw the lines to benefit

[00:09:36] themselves instead of a disinterested party drawing the lines in a fair way that benefits voters and that's what we're trying to do that's why we keep saying citizens not politicians we're trying

[00:09:48] to take the power to draw the lines away from the people who benefit from it and they can't help themselves if you're in a position of power it's really hard not to give yourself not to use

[00:10:00] that power to give yourself an edge you know whether you're a Democrat or a Republican or whatever you're going to use that power to give yourself an edge to give your friends an edge

[00:10:10] to give your team an edge you know and so take it away from the people who have something to benefit and give it to a disinterested party who's going to do it in a way that will benefit the voters

[00:10:21] and the state as a whole. Hard to believe that anyone could argue with that and the fact that we've been doing this for you said that 80s like that just hurts my little brain but a broad coalition of

[00:10:36] organizations supports the cement as well as 67 prominent business leaders across the state such as Jenny Britain from Jenny Splendid Ice Creams. Why do you think Jeremy Mendeering is such a unifying issue like we aren't typically going to see you know the citizens and business owners on the

[00:10:55] same side? Yes well honestly I can give you a super straightforward and honest answer to that which is Jeremy Mendeering hurts everybody it really does if you are a far right voter if you are a far

[00:11:09] left voter if you're in the middle Jeremy Mendeering hurts everybody because what it does the problem with Jeremy Mendeering well there are many problems so one of the problems is that

[00:11:20] you end up with these districts that are a foregone conclusion as to who's going to win. You know this district is drawn with such a huge percentage of Democrats or such a huge percentage of

[00:11:30] Republicans that you know in November that they're going to win. So what that means is the primary is the only election that really matters and in order to win the primary folks get more and more

[00:11:40] extreme so you know you're not really trying to win over everyone you're trying to win over just the most extreme members of your party so then you end up electing these really extreme politicians who who seats are essentially guaranteed because they're guaranteed to win in November

[00:11:57] they don't have to listen to voters they don't have to listen to their voters in their party they don't have to listen to the voters and the other party so it and it makes for dysfunctional

[00:12:08] politics when you have politicians who are really just trying to wave a flag to the most extreme members of their party and they're not really trying to solve problems and move the state forward

[00:12:19] or look at the problems and issues and come up with solutions then you end up with you know ridiculous things that end up hurting businesses they hurt this whole state I mean I could start

[00:12:31] listing the kinds of legislation the kinds of proposals that have gone through the legislature this year last year we've got somebody saying let's just abolish income tax oh that sounds like a

[00:12:43] great idea this is the kind of thing you get with extreme politicians who aren't beholden to the majority of their voters and that hurts everybody and you know it is also true that Democrats as well as Republicans given the opportunity will draw all lines to benefit themselves

[00:13:01] it's just a fact that is the bad side of jerrymandering why are so many people attracted to the effort to fix it because lots of people believe it or not actually care about

[00:13:14] improving our democracy not tearing it down you know our democracy is not perfect by any means but you know tearing it down and having just a super majority of folks that are really out of touch with

[00:13:27] what's going on in the state that is not a solution so improving our democracy and making it better and making it more representative of the actual people in the state that is actually

[00:13:38] something that a lot of people care about and are willing to put some time into people are attracted to improving things for everyone believe it or not not everybody but some people are

[00:13:53] at the beginning right he said who are you know people who are trying to make this state better for everybody no exceptions yeah that's right and the extremism we've seen over the last decade so many different shrines this we you know to me there would be been an

[00:14:10] under attack on the voting rights front the reproductive rights front you know the environmental environment has been under attack we've seen someone's corruption in our state house with the house with six scandal it's been unchecked just complete unchecked power at the state house and

[00:14:27] we've been we've begun seeing you know the real pushback you know with the the two big elections last year as it's clear how and are fed up power extreme things are you know in most recently

[00:14:40] with the anti-trains youth bill that was pushed through with a veto and they were the only way that they were able to veto the government or overright the governor's veto is because of Jeremy

[00:14:49] Mander and you know so I like all these things are going to ultimately hurt our state are going to cause people to leave our state you know are going to cause less investment to come in

[00:14:59] and so yeah there's a there's clearly a vested interest on all sides and having some sanity and yeah it's it's really an existential sort of battle and I just like to comment you know you mentioned last year's big elections so it's really interesting you have this basically

[00:15:16] a folks in the state house who wouldn't be there if it wasn't for Jeremy Mandering they're there on illegal maps they're not representing us and you know and yet they're worried that we might be able

[00:15:27] to actually achieve something by going around them Ohio is one of 24 states that have the ability to for citizens to collect signatures and put things on the ballot and essentially go around the state house when the state house is not responsive to them and doesn't really represent them

[00:15:45] so we had this battle last year in August where they were trying to take that ability away from us they were trying to take away our ability to go around them by making by putting up impossible hurdles

[00:15:57] so that we would never be able to get anything on the ballot again and we rejected that you know Ohioans rejected that and then they went in November and they said guess what we have a ballot

[00:16:07] initiative we have two ballot initiatives and we're gonna we got them on the ballot and we're going to vote for them and both of those issues passed and so I think it's really significant that

[00:16:17] this year we're continuing with that we're continuing to say we have the right to direct democracy we have the right to go around the legislature when it's not really working for us when it's

[00:16:28] really extreme when it's just doing all this ridiculous things that don't solve problems in Ohio and we're gonna put things on the ballot that actually try to improve things and a really important one is this anti-jerrymandering bill because it will not only improve things for Ohioans

[00:16:44] but it'll make the system fair so that it gets better in the future. Also worth noting that the same people that put on that special election in August past a bill in January of the same

[00:16:57] year ending special elections. That is just that's the one that gets me. Cherry on top. Yep, this should cake. The maps people have voted on her been deemed unconstitutional so this really is a fight to protect the democracy that we have which has already been under deep

[00:17:18] attack and these maps are unconstitutional you could argue we don't really have a democracy right now and this is a fight in existential fight to restore what has been taken and along the pathway to really improving and making this democracy a place where all Ohioans really have

[00:17:39] equal representation at all levels. And so yeah it's a huge fight. Former Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Americano Conor is a key spokesperson for the amendment champion in the idea of an independent commission chief justice of Connor was who's a Republican was the chief on the

[00:17:55] Supreme Court who ruled that the courts three Democrats have strike down the maps that had been put forward in 2020 showing that this is truly a nonpartisan issue what does it mean to see leaders like chief justice of Connor supporting the system? What does it mean that your

[00:18:10] staunch of opponents are extremist politicians that benefit from and are protected by the practice of jerrymandering? Well it's great to have people from all sides of the political spectrum backing this amendment obviously people who have had our taken away from them by jerrymandering

[00:18:30] are interested in this and that you know as I said jerrymandering is done by anybody who has who's in power and who's able to do it in Ohio's case our super majority is Republicans and they've

[00:18:41] been able to use jerrymandering to disproportionately increase the number of seats that they have but again jerrymandering is done by everybody so it's natural that the people who have been kind

[00:18:52] of discriminated against by the current maps are eager to change the system but anybody who wants to see fair rules in place for the future is going to back this amendment so people who believe in equal representation people who believe in our government being functional as opposed to

[00:19:11] dysfunctional they're going to back this amendment the people are staunchist opponents the people who are in power because of jerrymandering well hell of course they're going to say there's not a problem you know of course they will you know they're benefiting from it they're the ones that

[00:19:27] have drawn the crooked maps of course they're going to say the maps are fine or course they're going to say that you know we're just a bunch of extremists or whatever that's you know what else

[00:19:37] would they say in order to protect their privilege and their you know crooked maps and their system that is that doesn't work that doesn't if it's supposed to create equal representation

[00:19:50] and fair reposition it doesn't work because it ends up with you know skewed maps so I'm not really concerned about our opponents I wouldn't expect them to say anything else I just really want to make

[00:20:02] sure that people understand that no matter where you are no matter what party you think of yourself as belonging to no no matter what your politics are you need to have functional government and you

[00:20:14] need to have maps that represent the people in the state otherwise you can't really move forward you can't make any progress so yeah I'm I'm excited that former Chief Justice O'Connor is

[00:20:27] leading the charge and I think any reasonable person would see that we have a problem that needs to be fixed I also want to say that we're lucky in Ohio because we are not the first state to try to create a

[00:20:41] citizens redistricting commission there are several other states that have already done this California Arizona Colorado Michigan or neighbor a couple of others and we have learned from their mistakes we've learned all the kind of little ins and outs of the best way to make a commission

[00:21:00] and we also have learned from the past couple of years of chaos and bad faith behavior and so folks have had an opportunity to write a very complete and thorough amendment that

[00:21:15] works really hard to address the problems that might come up it's very fair in the way that the commissioners are chosen it's very it's very it's a requires a transparent process where the

[00:21:29] public can see everything that's happening as it goes along it has all kinds of stop gaps and it's very secure and complete and thorough and so I just want people to know that a lot of effort

[00:21:40] has gone into making a good amendment that will deal with some of the issues that have come up in the past few years. How does amazing I think that's pretty much it for all of our questions you have

[00:22:08] been just on point with each of these how can people support and get involved with citizens not politicians. Yes well you know we need 7800-800-000 signatures we need a lot of signatures

[00:22:24] folks so we really do need every single person to be out with a clipboard collecting signatures and so I would highly recommend that you sign up to volunteer I have a little bitly link I can give you it's

[00:22:39] bit.ly forward slash ball fair district so this is all over case VOL fair districts so bit lee forward slash ball fair districts or just reach out you know to a high-o voice come and

[00:22:58] cause fair districts reach out to any of the orgs and we'll put you in touch and I just also want to say you know definitely sign the petition you know look out for folks that are out with their

[00:23:09] clipboards that are asking you to sign but also get involved and volunteer even if you haven't done it before sometimes I feel like there's kind of a group of people who everybody knows they're

[00:23:20] going to pitch in no matter what everyone knows they're going to be out with their clipboards they're going to be registering voters getting signatures doing that but we need other people and everyone thanks you you know whenever you're out there with your clipboard everyone says thank you so

[00:23:36] much for what you're doing and I love that and I love being appreciated and I say oh no thank you this is great but if you really want to thank us and you really like what we're doing come and join us

[00:23:47] come and join us get a clipboard come out or even just stand with the sign be a part of it because it's really important it's really meaningful and it's all about democracy and saving our democracy

[00:24:01] and showing up our democracy and it's a way of participating in our democracy that's that's really meaningful and we will be sure to include that link as well in the show note so any listeners that are

[00:24:15] looking for that link it will be easily available to you yeah thanks so much for coming on and dropping so many gems so many jewels for us take away from this conversation and

[00:24:29] I know the the sign it's the deadline for turning signatures in is July 3rd and like you said it's it's a herkily in task we need all hands on deck so if you're listening to this please

[00:24:39] take me up on our offer to get involved to get a clipboard I'm to go out there and make sure that your friends and your family your your classmates people that you go to church with you know

[00:24:51] make sure they know what's going on make sure they understand how important this fight is and and what when it could mean on so many different fronts we've been under such a vicious series of attacks over the last 10 years and this is really an opportunity to stop those

[00:25:06] and to turn to an undue chapter for the state so thank you so much for me for being with us and for the work you've been doing for years being on the front lines of this fight

[00:25:17] and I know we will we'll be seeing you soon and good luck as you as you carry forward with the the campaign. Thank you so much I appreciate it and same back to you guys.

[00:25:33] As always because at what's go to higher dot com for show notes and links and subscribe to what's go to higher wherever you get your podcasts we'll see you next time to keep talking about what's good here in Ohio