To the Editor:
Protecting the rights of voters
Most Ohioans agree that the power to elect lawmakers needs to rest with the voters, not with politicians. In fact, Ohio voters, recently and with large majorities, twice changed the Ohio Constitution to put an end to gerrymandering. These Constitutional amendments require our state lawmakers to draw state legislative and congressional maps that provide representation to all Ohioans, giving all Ohioans a chance to have people who represent them, no matter their income level, their political party or what they look like.
Unfortunately, Ohio Republicans in the statehouse and on the Redistricting Commission are refusing to abide by the law and follow the Ohio Constitution. They have twice proposed highly gerrymandered state and congressional maps that flout the Ohio Constitution and which, appropriately, have been rejected by the Ohio Supreme Court. This proposed partisan gerrymandering not only deprives Ohioans of fair representation, it also further divides us, leading to the most extreme candidates who often care more about stoking the culture wars than solving problems we face.
In the darkest period of our history, President Lincoln spoke words of hope and inspiration, saying, in the Gettysburg address, “. . .our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” We too can continue to defend our democracy just as President Lincoln did during the Civil War, calling on Americans to resolve that the nation “shall have a new birth of freedom-and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”
Janet Chandler
Mount Vernon
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