Growing up in the ‘80s (I was 13 when the decade ended), I saw a lot of movies when they were new that would go on to become “cult classics” years later. One of my favorites from this era is titled “The Legend of Billie Jean.”
This movie is about a group of teenage friends from the wrong side of the tracks who are accused of things they didn’t do, so they run away from home.
Later in the movie, the main character makes a video for the media where she utters a catchphrase that excites her peers around the nation and rallies them to her defense.
Billie Jean looks into the camera, throws her left fist in the air and cries out, “Fair is fair!” I fell in love with that phrase and, even as a kid, thought it made an excellent- and awesome- mantra for teens and young adults.
In fact, this phrase has always stuck with me and I think may have largely influenced my life outlook because, even now, I have a bumper sticker on my car that reads: I Love Equality.
Next Tuesday, when we all go to vote, unless, like me, you voted early, (early voting goes until Nov. 5 at 2 p.m.) we will have a few decisions to make. In addition to voting for our new elected officials, one of the choices is literally about the fairness of who decides the boarders of our U.S. congressional districts here in Ohio, which directly effects who represents us in Congress.
Ohio’s Constitution says that the state’s congressional districts must be redrawn every 10 years after the latest census population information becomes available.
As it stands now, when it comes time for the districts to be redrawn, it is in the hands of a panel of politicians consisting of the governor, the state auditor, the secretary of state and two members of the state Legislature, one Republican and one Democrat.
This means when one political party is disproportionately in control of the seat of power, that party decides how the new districts are redrawn and that party inevitably redraws the districts in such a way as to gain a political advantage.
The process is known as gerrymandering and it’s as old as U.S. politics itself.
While Ohio is pretty evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, after our districts were redrawn in 2011, the Republicans held an advantage in 12 of 16 districts.
If passed next Tuesday, Issue 2 would take control of district redrawing out of the hands of legislators and put it into the hands of an independent commission of citizens.
Issue 2 would set up a system of determining the independent commission that is similar to the current jury selection system.
The state appellate court would appoint about 42 citizen commission finalists who would then go before Ohio state legislators from both parties. They would then have an opportunity to object to a specific number of commission members until the commission is narrowed down to 12 members agreed upon by both parties.
Anyone holding an elected office in Ohio would be automatically disqualified from serving on the commission.
Opponents of the proposed law say that picking commission finalists should not be a function of the courts, but Robin Deters, a voter outreach manager with the organization Jobs with Justice, disagrees.
Deters says that the courts already play a similar role in our government because they are responsible for filling legislative appointments when they become vacant in-between elections.
“It is ridiculous to say that we are involving them where they never have been involved before,” she said.
I support the passage of Issue 2 because it quite simply is not fair for whichever political party that happens to be in control of the state capital at the time to be allowed to stack the deck (for a decade) in favor of their party.
It wasn’t fair when Republicans did it this time and it is not fair when Democrats do it either. We can change that next Tuesday.
We can vote in favor of Issue 2 and send a message to the politicians (of both political parties) in Columbus, “Fair is fair!”
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