‘Actions Scream So Much Louder Than Their Hollow Words:’ Ohio Capital Journal Takes DeWine and LaRose to Task for Again Betraying Ohio Voters
September 23, 2021
Columbus, OH — In case you missed it, Ohio Capital Journal editor David DeWitt today took Mike DeWine and Frank LaRose to task for once again breaking their promises to Ohio voters as they bowed to political pressure and voted to pass unconstitutional statehouse maps. DeWitt looked back on past statements from DeWine and LaRose that prove that they know better than to pass these unconstitutional maps that fly in the face of what Ohio voters repeatedly called for, they just don’t care.
“DeWine had a vote. So did Frank LaRose. Instead of a 5-2 partisan vote for gerrymandering, it could’ve been a 4-3 bipartisan vote for fair maps. That’s exactly what voters wanted, bipartisan and fair maps. DeWine and LaRose could’ve voted for and gotten representative maps, but they gave Ohio voters more rigged maps. Their actions scream so much louder than their hollow words,” writes DeWitt.
Both LaRose and DeWine are scared of primary challengers and know they are hemorrhaging support within their own party. So instead of showing any sort of courage and doing the right thing, they backed down once again to extreme members of their party (read: the Republican legislature) at the expense of the rule of law.
Read more from Ohio Capital Journal HERE and below:
- The oddest part is Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine acting as though he’s somehow powerless and had no choice when he voted to rig Ohio elections with partisan, gerrymandered maps for the next four years. After all, he’s only the governor.
- In 2011 as a state senator, LaRose voted for the gerrymander-rigged districts Ohio has had for the last decade. Those lines, our current districts, were created in a secret GOP hotel room “bunker” at the downtown Double Tree in Columbus.
- Last week, as secretary of state and a member of the redistricting commission, LaRose again voted to gerrymander Ohio, this time for four years.
- This is now 14 years of rigged district lines LaRose has voted for but feels super bad about.
- LaRose told everybody all over the state in 2018 that we could count on him, but when the time came, in a critical moment for the integrity of Ohio government, he failed us.
- How about DeWine? Here’s what he said when he was campaigning for governor in 2018: “The rules are pretty clear — the voters said that the redistricting process should be done in a bipartisan way and when I am governor there will be an expectation that the new district maps honor the voters’ wishes.”
- DeWine had a golden opportunity to live up to his own expectations. It was even in his own interest. He could’ve broken the veto-proof supermajority that has overridden him on pandemic safety and stripped him of powers.
- Instead DeWine shrank from the moment, and claims powerlessness, bemoans a lack of compromise, when it was he who was in a position to compromise, he who was in a position to lead, and he who failed to do so.
- DeWine had a vote. So did Frank LaRose. Instead of a 5-2 partisan vote for gerrymandering, it could’ve been a 4-3 bipartisan vote for fair maps. That’s exactly what voters wanted, bipartisan and fair maps.
- Their actions scream so much louder than their hollow words.