On May 8, 2018, Ohioans will get to vote on Issue 1, a proposal reached by politicians in Ohio to make Ohio districts fairer.
At the congressional level, Ohio is currently one of the most gerrymandered states in the country with four Democratic districts and 12 Republican districts. Republicans received 75 percent of the power at the federal level in a state that voted for Barack Obama in both 2008 and 2012.
As it stands, the current system is broken.
To address this, people organized as Fair Districts Ohio and worked to get a ballot proposal on the ballot for 2018. Republicans did not want the Fair Districts Ohio proposal on the ballot in November 2018. To try to head this off, they tried to pass a terrible proposal which would keep control in Republican hands. Fair Districts said decided they couldn’t support it, and went ahead with the ballot initiative.
This brought Republicans back to the table to support a much better proposal. This better proposal is Issue 1.
Because this proposal was a compromise with the Republican-controlled legislature, however, some of the questions Democrats and progressives frequently ask are: Can we trust it? Is this a good idea?
While it’s not perfect, it’s pretty darn good. Here are the details, and why we should pass Issue 1.