Gerrymandering Destroys Democracy in Ohio

COMMENTARY | Democracy is considered the most enlightened form of government in the world. The voters send their elected representatives to the national legislative body to enact laws reflecting the will of the people. If they fail to do the people's bidding, they will not be re-elected.

But the U.S. House of Representatives does not operate that way. The whole concept of democracy is subverted by a practice called gerrymandering. According to Mother Jones, Ohio is one of the worst examples.

In gerrymandering, the boundaries of congressional voting districts are drawn by the party in control of the state government to create districts that are almost certain to re-elect members of their party. The districts sometimes are drawn in absurd and distorted shapes to achieve this goal.

This happens every 10 years after a new census. Both parties are guilty of this practice. The actual result is that representatives do not need to respond to the will of the people because they will be elected anyway. They are free to advance personal and party agendas.

According to Slate.com, in Ohio, President Obama won re-election by a margin of almost two percent. The GOP won Ohio U.S. House of Representative seats by 12-4. Republicans controlled the state government at the time of the 2010 census and did a superb job of drawing district lines to benefit their party.

The results in the Ohio state legislature are similar. A Columbus Dispatch editorial says Republicans control the Ohio House 60-39, despite the fact that Democratic Ohio House candidates received a margin of 56,000 votes.

There have been two recent attempts to eliminate the practice in Ohio. According to the Columbus Dispatch, the 2012 Issue 2 was a proposed constitutional amendment, designed to be as non-partisan as possible. A complex process would have created a 12-member commission composed an equal share of Republicans, Democrats and non-affiliated members. Opposition from the GOP, the Ohio Bar Association and various other groups doomed that attempt.

As a resident of Zanesville, in east-central Ohio, I am hopeful that the League of Women Voters and other civic-minded groups in 2013 will not abandon the quest to provide a fair and equitable method of drawing voting districts in a manner that provides a competitive race in each district and ensures office-holders are actually held accountable to the will of the people. This would go far to eliminate the adherents of extreme ideology who create today's paralysis in Congress.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gerrymandering-destroys-democracy-ohio-204000707.html

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