Ohio voters just took firm positions on abortion and reproductive rights and adult-use recreational marijuana Tuesday, but gerrymandered Ohio lawmakers are already planning to flout, ignore, challenge, and abuse the voters’ wishes. This is what gerrymandering brings. This is why it’s a fundamental poison in the lifeblood of our republic.
Mere hours after Ohio voters passed the Issue 1 reproductive rights amendment with 56.62%, according to unofficial results, and the Issue 2 recreational marijuana law with 57% (both getting nearly 2.2 million votes), Ohio Republican legislative leaders signaled they would not respect the will of the people.
Maybe this way the people learn that Republicans cannot be trusted with democratic decisions.
Maybe this way the people learn that Republicans cannot be trusted.
FTFY.
When I lived in Arizona, I tried my best to inform people EVERY TIME the state Republicans fought back against voter initiatives (which was nearly every time).
They don’t care. Arizonans even voted recently to make voter initiatives harder to pass
https://www.azcentral.com/elections/results/2022-11-08/state/arizona/
But at least they (barely) voted against the other bill Republicans put on the ballot: That their government be allowed to alter passed voter initiatives.
Fuck Republicans
Expecting republican voters to learn… I admire your optimism.
They have a reason to learn, and they have the chance to do so. Whether they take this chance is an entirely different question.
Maybe this way the people learn
Hey, hope springs eternal, but if we look at past experience and try to guess at what the future will hold…
That’s why I said “maybe”. Those MAGA-heads are slow learners, and with some of them the speed is to low to measure.
Like when the people of Florida clearly voted to restore voting rights to people who completed their time in the justice system, and Florida Republicans just said Nah. Fuck the Republicans.
Or when Utah voted to legalize Marijuana (against the Mormon Church’s wishes) and the Utah Republicans just said Nah.
What they did was actually worse than just saying “No.” They said that former felons could get their voting rights back if they paid all their fines. Except, they didn’t provide any way of figuring out what fines you owed. One government official might say you’re good to go, but then you submit your paperwork and they discover a $5.12 fine three counties over and you get arrested on a felony again.
At least with a firm no, former felons would know where they stand. With this system, they technically can vote again, but practically can’t unless they want to risk going back to prison.
I genuinely don’t understand how a human could see what they do and think “oh yeah these guys are good, fuck those assholes that care about basic human rights”
For some if it “owns the libs” it’s good. Doesn’t matter if it erodes democracy or not.
It’s this. Many Republicans lack the ability of empathy for other people- especially for people different than them. They can not see things from both sides. They may wonder what happen to democracy when it is gone and be dumfounded when it is their rights being taken away.
Maybe they don’t see people unlike them as fully human.
Fascist gonna fascism.
Only if we let them. We all gotta vote or they’ll fascism all over the place.
I’m getting genuinely nervous that voting is not going to stop this one. With them lying and switching parties after being voted in, to the judicial system being completely corrupt and stacked, our window is closing fast. It needs to be legal to punch fascist in the face. Intolerance cannot be tolerated.
They want you to feel like it’s inevitable that they’ll win. It isn’t!
No, I feel it’s inevitable that I will be in the middle of a civil war to forcibly push these fascist from our government. I will vote until I have to enact my second amendment rights.
I can respect that. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Jan 6th has proven they’ll go to extremes to win. My big hope is that the maga movement gets crushed next year and the Republicans turn on each other. My fear is that Republicans will coalesce and the contentious coalition of Democrats, liberals, progressives, etc. will fracture. At least one moron is going to say, “I’m not voting for Biden because X I’m voting for Jill stein instead” and that’ll make it one vote easier for Trump to take control and run the DOJ like some comic book crime lord.
January 6th was never meant to succeed. It was just a litmus test. See how the public and the judicial system would handle the prospect of insurrection. The next time it happens, the loop holes found will be exploited, and there will be no going back.
I think it was serious, just poorly planned. I think we’re pretty much on the same page here though. I definitely think that there will be a next time.
Isn’t this literally a post about how people voted and its going to be ignored anyway?
Yep, it is. That’s a nuance lost on the party soldiers itt though…
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How would you suggest we fix gerrymandering without voting?
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You talk a big talk but I doubt you’ll be out there in a armed mob.
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Organize it…you won’t though because you are some troll keyboard warrior who thinks they will walk up to a politicians house with a mob and pull them out and cut their head off and some how that will cause social change. If you think that do it, no one is stopping you
I’m very interested in seeing how that would play out. When you organize that let me know I’ll watch with gusto. Personally, I think you’ll end up gassed or pepper sprayed, tazed, and arrested. Or maybe dead. I’ll watch for you on CNN though.
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MLK Jr?
“I’ll send all the money you ask for, but don’t ask me to come on along …”
Remind me how that one ends again?
Ultimately the narcissism of small differences will ruin us all.
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Let me know when it’s something other that text on the Internet. I voted this past Tuesday. I back up what I say is important.
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Don’t stop at voting. Volunteer to encourage others to vote. Get more involved in local politics. Run for local office.
I don’t not have the time to run but I know my city council woman and I’ve had her sign in my yard twice now. As well as the school board members. They all won reelection this past Tuesday too. I’ve been thinking about becoming a precinct captain but I’m already kind of stretched thin.
Yeah, that’s going well…
Your options are vote or give up and let them do whatever they want. You can be apathetic if you want but I’m not giving up.
These are not the only options. If the representatives don’t respect results of democratic vote, organize and go to the streets, protest, don’t let them think you don’t care!
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Protesting without voting is just taking a loud walk. It’s easy for politicians to ignore you if you don’t ever show up at the polls. That would be like a bunch of people protesting outside a McDonald’s because the food is unhealthy and then eating at that McDonald’s for their lunch break. Definitely protest but back that protesting up with voting.
Yes, I never meant protesting without voting. In this case people DID vote. But their decision is being ignored. I don’t think the reasonable thing to do in such case is to wait peacefully for another election!
I must have misunderstood. I apologize
Protesting without voting is just taking a loud walk.
My dawg WE DID VOTE. I VOTED. I VOTED FOR BOTH OF THE ISSUES IN THIS POST AND THE PARTY IN POWER IS STILL SAYING FUCK YOU.
Sorry for the all caps but like, c’mon guy, do you think people aren’t voting? We fucking voted! We did it! We did the thing people have always told us to do and the Republicans are still getting their way! Just voting isn’t cutting it anymore! Stop telling people just to vote, and stop belitting other valid forms that the voting populace can use to enact change!
People vote once and a while. In the 2020 presidential election voter turn out spiked. The 2022 midterm though? 46%
You want to protest? Go for it.
You want to scream in all caps? Go for it
You want to say “fuck the fascists” or talk about what you’ll do to them? Go for it
Do whatever you want. As long as one of the things you do is vote.
It’s easy for politicians to ignore you if you don’t ever show up at the polls.
It’s much easier if you ONLY show the at the polls and only for them no matter what.
That’s why you have to vote in the primary. AOC should have taught you that. Also, did you happen to see the last sentence in that previous comment?
I’m not the one being apathetic. This whole disaster has been allowed to happen because people like you support people unconditionally and then they do whatever the fuck they want in office.
When the bar is “better than the alternative” and they keep moving down with it every time Republicans dig down further, you never get the representation you need and deserve.
Your “vote blue no matter who and never criticize OUR leadership” obedience is why the Dems became complacent enough to allow fascism to gain a foothold while themselves veering further right than Reagan.
You misunderstand the suggestion. The time to drive Democratic Party policy is in the primary. Vote for the Lefties. Vote for the socialists. Vote for the anarcho-communists. Vote for the leftiest Lefty that ever leftied. Drive the party Left there, but in that General, you need to vote Blue. The alternative may well ensure you never vote again because they have a plan that involves the voting public being turned into serfs and slaves for their policies. The righties have known this for a goddamn fucking long time. They express it as “Vote for the Conservative in the Primary, and vote for the Republican in the General.” We need to steal that thinking and modify it to ‘vote for the Liberal in the primary and the Democrat in the General.’ There’s fucking more of us than there are of those shitheads, just like there were in Iran in the 1970s and in Germany in the 1930s. When you get on your fucking high horse and say ‘they aren’t liberal enough’, that’s how you get people like Hitler and the Ayatollah.
The time to drive Democratic Party policy is in the primary
Good plan in theory, but the party itself is in charge of the primaries and the leadership plays favorites.
in that General, you need to vote Blue.
I agree. I’m not saying to not vote blue, I’m saying to make the blue ones earn your vote and raise hell when they don’t.
vote for the Liberal in the primary
No thanks. Neoliberalism is a center right to right wing ideology.
When you get on your fucking high horse and say ‘they aren’t liberal enough’, that’s how you get people like Hitler and the Ayatollah.
Holding your elected officials accountable for their actions is so far from a high horse that it’s a fucking pony.
that’s how you get people like Hitler and the Ayatollah.
No. The rise of the ayatollah was backlash to a US-sponsored coup and Hitler (and Mussolini, for that matter) was the liberals and conservatives in charge not doing enough to stop the rise of fascism, just like the neoliberal Dem leadership now.
…the party itself is in charge of the primaries…
I keep hearing this but what I’m not seeing is proof. It’s like Trump screaming the elections are rigged. Lots of sound and fury signifying nothing, but what I’m not seeing is actual fire. It sounds like you’re saying ‘don’t vote, it doesn’t matter’ with this, and that’s the exact bullshit I’m trying to stop, because the only people who benefit right now are the assholes on the Right who want us to stop voting so they can just steal it.
…raise hell when they don’t (earn your vote).
If you hold their asses accountable in the Primary like I’m telling you, then by all means, hold their asses to the fire. But Trump’s already said what he’s going to do in 2025 if he gets in office. I’ve not read the document yet, but there’s lots of talk about him jailing people like you and me, so maybe you’re going to want to vote the Mealy-Mouthed Democrat in 2024 so you aren’t jailed in 2025 by asshole authoritarians. That’s what I’m saying. You raise hell in the Primaries now, because the Republicans will jail you and murder all your gay and minority friends if we listen to what they say they want to do.
Neoliberalism… (in the Primary)?
Again. The Republicans are telling us they’re going to jail Liberals when they take over in 2025. I’m not asking you to not hold the Neoliberal’s feet to the fire in 2025, 2026, 2027, and 2028. Hell, I’m not telling you to vote for the Neoliberal in 2024’s primaries. But if you vote third party or stay home on Election Day 2024 like so many of you did in 2016 (and 2000, and 2004…) and get my bisexual goth pagan black wife hurt or killed in the Project 2025 nonsense the Trumpers want to go, I’m going to be mighty fucking pissed at you because you let your fucking ideological purity get in the way of common fucking sense.
(Quibbling about the definition of a colloquialism)
Here’s another colloquialism for you to quibble on: Whistling past the graveyard. There’s a whole crowd of fucking Nazi Frogs outside of it, if you can’t see it through your ideological tests.
Quibbling about the rise of the Ayatollah…
Funny. I studied this shit in college. Yes, the Shah was bad. But what led the Ayatollah to rise rather than, say, a coalition of Leftists, Centrists, Academics, and Moderates of all stripes is the same ideological bullshit our little tiff here is exhibiting. While the Socialists, the Communists, the Academians, the mainstream Liberals, the Moderates, and the Business Owners fought over the best way to rule Iran, the Fundamentalists got busy stealing the reigns of power, and then outlawed the other groups and oppressed them much like the Shah had all of them. While you argue about the purity of your ideology, Trump and his merry band of fuckwits are dreaming of doing more than throwing us in the back of unmarked vans, beating us down with literal “secret” police clad head to foot in riot gear but with no indication of what service they were with or who they are, and drawing nasty political cartoons where Trump is Pepe the Frog in a Nazi Uniform pushing the button while various famous actors, politicians, and other people even remotely Left of Nazi Frog Trump get gassed in the next room over. I don’t want that to happen here!
But you have convinced me, buddy. You’ve convinced me that most hard-leftists would rather see the country burn than see Biden get another 4 years. I just hope my wife and I can get out of the oncoming Nazi Frog USA before it gets worse.
You’re putting a lot of words and opinions in my mouth and I’m just not going to touch on them because you, quite frankly, don’t know anything about me. But. If you think voting less will ever - ever make our society better than in my opinion you don’t have a clue.
Ohio Republican legislative leaders signaled they would not respect the will of the people.
Have they ever?
When the people voted for them, sure
That’s what cracks me up the most. Republicans can hold a 1 seat majority and act like they were voted in on a tsunami wave of popular approval sent down by the Almighty himself. They’ll use the slightest majority to spin up committees and investigations and will railroad through every appointment or piece of legislation that they can.
But then when voters reject their ideas with an overwhelming majority, then it’s all “democracy is flawed” and “voters can’t be trusted to know what’s best for them.” Bunch of hypocritical bastards.
If that was the case they wouldn’t have gerrymandered so hard
Republicans want to rule, not represent
They never really stopped. Before this was their previous attempt, the August election’s Issue 1 in which they tried to suppress voter initiatives to amend the Constitution. Anybody that supports Republicans at this point is supporting fascism. There’s not really “the lesser of two evils” in most elections now, it’s the Evil party that is doing just about everything they can against America & the public, and then there’s everyone else.
It’s so important to be registered to vote and to vote in presidential, midterm, and off year elections. It’s important to vote at the national, state, and local levels.
Fun fact, that special election in August broke their own rules as signed in HB 458. Aug special elections were removed unless to draw resolutions on fiscal emergencies (see sec 3501.022-A).
Or when Florida passed an anti gerrymandering law and the governor just ignored the state Congress and resubmitted the illegal maps
Oh did Florida also do it? Ohio’s illegal maps were struck down but they just sent the same ones until time ran out
Yep, for a while now actually. DeSantis just kind of… Ignored the map drawn according to the law and resubmitted the old one. And the sunshine law that requires everything that passes over a public officials desk to be made public, including meeting records and emails
I thought calling Republicans fascist was a little hyperbolic, or at least premature… But then I saw DeSantis blatantly ignore the law, fire elected officials for dutifully fulfilling campaign promises (specifically, by adopting a rehabilitation first stance on crime, which was showing great results), form an extra legal panel to push “anti woke” policies in schools, and gave police the right to take children they suspect might be brought out of state for gender affirming care (obviously not cis gender affirming care like prosthetic boots for men insecure about their height while running for president). Then there’s the book burnings, unconstituional laws, attempting to impose government censorship on Disney, and of course multiple fun flavors of voter suppression
In all fairness his drag queen high heel boots made him to tall to read the law. He’s such a Bitchy queen.
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I just want the rest of the country to understand how little of a say we have in our government in Ohio. They’re comfortable doing this with these margins because of how gerrymandered we are. Illegally so, but they just kept submitting the same map until the timer ran out
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Yeah frankly I’m angry that they weren’t held in contempt of court for the first attempt at that. That’s not a situation where any bullshit should be allowed. We were gerrymandered so hard we did a ballot initiative to ban gerrymandering specifically in the way that prevents legislature from changing or overturning it and the Republican state Supreme Court said it was blatantly illegal. And these absolute dictator wannabes just sent the same one. A clear statement of “we do not respect democracy and we will not accept the will of our state population.” No, that’s not a situation that gets a warning. That needs a “if you continue to play stupid games we will stop you”
That or send a third party to create a fair map and decide that the legislature has abdicated their right to create their map
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Can I build the damn guillotine yet?
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Honestly, I’d really like the federal government to enforce the illegality of our districting and protect these lass
I think we should spread the word in left leaning circles about jury nullification. If you’re on trial for beating the shit out of a Republican, and I’m on the trial, I will find you not guilty. Even if there’s a 4k video of you curb stomping Maga Bob while holding your ID.
Voting is important but ultimately might makes right.
I hope they try! The GOPs hard stance on this just keeps helping Dems at every turn. They’re digging their own graves
It’s my hope that stories like this will motivate people to just vote them out.
I lean right on most things, but do support both of these measures. I also support removing lawmakers that do not adhere to the will of the people they were elected to represent. Politicians need to be reminded they work for US, and need to be reminded they should fear the voting public.
There’s a thirsty tree in Ohio.
Sounds like it’s past time for that general strike
Just as soon as someone does all of the necessary planning. Strikes go on for a long time. There needs to be infrastructure in place for helping people meet their needs during a strike. That’s one thing that unions are able to help with. Untill that infrastructure is in place, a general strike will never succeed because people will need money to food, medication, sanitary products, etc.
There aren’t enough cops to guard all of the grocery stores that lack employees from being looted.
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Seriously, you’re already giving up? You have a firm date, five years in the future to get ready, and already have tens of thousand of strikers lined up. How many advantages do you need?
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Unionize your workplace and set your contract expiration for April 30, 2028. I know it’s far off, but that gives us the time to organize and save. UAW called for everyone to set their expiration dates to the same date. That’s actual planning for a general strike. We need time to build strike funds, build collective power, etc.
As someone not from US, and generally interested in the specifics of gerrymandering, can someone share a link for the extent of gerrymandering in Ohio.
I like to use the Princeton website that tracks and grades how badly a state has been gerrymandered:
You should post this in the political community. This is a fantastic resource.
They did the same in Florida… And we are yet going to try again…
