An Important Off-year Election: Saunders and Stevens

I'm heading out to the precinct today to drop off literature for Don Saunders, candidate for Bedford Mayor, and Phil Stevens, candidate for Bedford Board of Education.

Notwithstanding the past few days of rain and dark, this is a beautiful time of year: the leaves are just a bit past their full color, and the temperatures are cool but not bitter. I would have liked to begin walking the precinct a few weeks ago, but my schedule didn't permit it; so today, I'll be concentrating primarily on households with at least one Democrat.

My message is pretty simple. Both the mayoral and school board races are nonpartisan, but that doesn't prohibit candidates from seeking the endorsements of the political parties. To the best of my knowledge, no candidates has asked for the endorsement of the Republican Party; but in each of these races, one candidate took the time and trouble to ask for the Democratic Party endorsement. Those candidates are our own councilman, Don Saunders, for mayor, and Phil Stevens for Board of Education. I think that their going through that extra step indicates not only that they share our values but that they were motivated enough to ask for that endorsement.

Although this walking in the fresh fall air is relatively pleasant, every time I do it I think that there has to be a better way. I'm sure that many of my neighbors would prefer some other way to keep in touch, and you would think that in today's technological age we could find one. But the fact is that postal mail is expensive, and we don't have email addresses for most of our neighbors. Here's my offer: I'll omit your address from my literature drops, if you'll give me an email address to send communications to. I promise not to share your email address without your explicit permission. To register for this lit-drop opt-out, send an email to BLavezzi@BWHdems.org.

This Year, Support Issue Two

A year ago, many of us were thrilled that our fellow-citizens joined us in rejecting 2011's Issue Two; this year, we're asking them to support a completely different Issue Two! We didn't choose the timing or the issue numbers, but it's no surprise that there's a lot of confusion out there.

This year's Issue Two is the Reapportionment Amendment. It was organized by Voters First, a coalition let by the League of Women Voters. The Ohio Education Association was one of the groups that supported the initiative, enacting a temporary dues increase to help support it. Early polls indicated that the idea of reforming Ohio's reapportionment system was popular, but the details are complicated, and it's harder to explain in 10-second sound bites. Recent attacks make the issue's passage seem less likely.

I'm supporting Issue Two, and in this article I'll explain why. But first, an acknowledgment of the main reason why it's been a tough go: this is wonkish stuff, reforming a technological side of the system, Last year's Issue Two  was all about heroes and villains; this one is about computer models and the subtleties of an electoral system gone horribly wrong.

Let me acknowledge that in one respect, I'm like any Tea Partier you might know. Like members of the Tea Party, I'm deeply disturbed about the direction in which our country is going. But unlike them, one of my concerns is the extent to which the system rewards the wingnuts at the farthest extremes of the political spectrum. I've come to believe that Issue Two offers a chance to reform the system and bring some sanity to our political discourse.

And I'm feeling a bit wonkish myself, so let's dig in.

What would Issue Two do?

Issue Two would replace the present system of reapportionment with a system in which officeholders and party officials and would have much less control over the outcome.

Why is this important?

Our ability to elect good legislators depends on having competitive races. The present system creates both Democratic and Republic districts that are practically unassailable.

What's wrong with that?

It makes most Democratic and Republic incumbents virtually unbeatable and therefore takes away much of their incentive to represent their constituents.

How does it do that?

Typically, by carefully drawing district boundaries so that minority-party voters are "packed" into designated legislative districts and the majority party enjoys districts custom-designed to elect members of the party in power.

So this is about Republicans and Democrats?

To some degree. In statewide elections, Ohioans split close to 50-50 between the two main parties. But the legislative districts developed for the 2012 elections will almost certainly produce overwhelming Republican majorities in the Ohio General Assembly and the Ohio Congressional delegation: they were designed to.

However, it also means that many incumbent Democrats have districts drawn so that they can't lose. That decreases their incentives to serve their constituents.

Whoever wins the elections--state Senators and Representatives, and US Representatives--won't really need to meet with or listen to their constituents, because their districts have been designed to re-elect them.

In Columbus recently, I talked with an elected Democratic legislator who bemoaned what might happen to his "nice, comfortable" district is Issue Two passes. Since he's been a reliable friend over the years, I didn't tell him what I was thinking and should be obvious: he'd actually need to campaign in the new district.

I thought we were supposed to choose our  representatives.

Voters are supposed to choose their representatives; however, under the present law the politicians chose their voters. Various media sources have identified the role of politicians in customizing district boundaries.

It can't be that bad.

No? Let me illustrate with some congressional districts. The Voting Rights Act requires "minority opportunity districts." Several media reports indicate that Ohio House Speaker Bill Batchelder suggested a minority Congressional district built like a barbell, with one cluster in Cleveland, another in Akron, and a narrow corridor between.

That packs Democrats into a safely Democratic district, but it also produces two monstrosities: first, there's the black Democratic Congressional District 11 itself:

The design of that district allowed for  the creation of an overwhelmingly white Republican  Congressional District 16, which  wraps around  Congressional District 11 and the western tip of  Congressional District 13, which runs from Barberton to the Pennsylvania border.

Or take a look at  Congressional District 9, the widely-derided "Snake on the Lake," which was designed to pit Democrats Marcy Kaptur and Dennis Kucinich against each other (and which it is virtually impossible to traverse on land):

Or Congressional District 4, which stretches 180 miles from Montezuma, in Mercer County (a few miles from Indiana), to Sheffield, in Lorain County.

Well, yes, these look pretty bad. But the critics are saying that Issue Two empowers unelected officials.

Right. And that's because the present system allows elected officials to so clearly abuse their authority by creating districts that serve only partisan political purposes.

What will happen if Issue Two passes?

If Issue Two passes, a nonpartisan apportionment board will be charged with developing new districts to use beginning in the 2014 elections. Read more here.

The new criteria include community preservation, competitiveness, representational fairness, and  compactness. And if they do a bad job, the commission's work can be challenged in court.

As a centrist Democrat, my own hope is that more competitive districts will encourage officials to work toward the political middle rather than pander to the most extreme elements of their parties. At the very least, the result will clearly be more rational districts and better representation. But my hope is more ambitious: I hope that better districts can lead to a less polarized political life, with candidates talking about real issues rather than the demonizing ads that we're being subjected to during this campaign season.

Vote “NO” on Issue 2

Normally odd-numbered years are an opportunity to take a break from most politics; but Campaign 2011 is shaping up to be as important as any campaign in an even-numbered year.

Last fall, Ohio voters elected John Kasich as Ohio’s governor by a narrow margin. Kasich had claimed to be the candidate of jobs, but it was clear that he didn’t have much use for the work done by public employees, and particularly teachers. He had vowed during the Republican primary campaign to “break the back of organized labor in the schools.”

Once elected, he announced, “I am waiting for the teachers’ unions to take out full-page ads in all the major newspapers, apologizing for what they had to say about me during this campaign.”

He warned lobbyists--including those representing schools--"If you're not on the bus, we'll run you over with the bus."

So when a freshman State Senator from Southern Ohio introduced a 500-page bill to virtually eliminate collective bargaining rights for public employees, no one who had been following the Governor’s position was surprised when he announced his support for it.

Since he had made it clear that he wasn’t prepared to talk with public employee unions—particularly teachers’ unions—no one was surprised when Kasich refused all attempts at dialogue while SB 5 was being rammed through both houses of the General Assembly despite significant opposition within his own party.

The pro-Issue 2 side is well-funded, and it’s providing plenty of TV ads to talk about some of the lesser provisions of Senate Bill 5. But if Senate Bill 5 passes, public employees will have virtually no representation rights. Managers will be free to run schools, departments, and hospitals as private empires, and employees will lose any ability to stick up for themselves and each other. That includes the bargaining they do for safety gear, reasonable class sizes, and safe working conditions.

Issue 2 is unsafe and unfair, and it hurts the middle class. That’s why I’m spending these few nice days of this awful October canvassing our neighborhood, encouraging my neighbors to join me in rejecting SB 5 by voting NO on Issue 2.

Carpet-bombing the Neighborhood

Yesterday, I finally finished the three-day process of walking our precinct to drop off campaign literature: what the political pros call a "lit drop" and I call "carpet-bombing."

I have been walking our precinct in one way or another for nearly twenty years, since an unsuccessful run for City Council. The Sixth Ward then had three precincts, and one of them voted at the High School. In those days, I could walk each precinct in a day, and it took three days to walk the whole ward; now, it takes me three days just to walk the precinct!

A few observations for any of you curious enough to check this weblog:

• The neighborhood looks pretty good. I had a chance to talk with several residents working hard to maintain their property. And the Halloween decorations always enliven the experience of walking the neighborhood.
• It seems that we still have a large number of empty homes. I've been dropping off literature only at places that have had recent Democrat or Undeclared voters, so I'm hoping I didn't hit too many unoccupied homes.
• The packets that we received from the Democratic Party were pretty compact, relatively heavy, and held together with rubber bands. In most cases, I left campaign pieces in front of doors, and it seemed unlikely that they would be blown around and become a nuisance. (I had to forgo some good lit-drop days earlier in the week because I thought it was too windy.)
• In order to introduce myself, I prepared a label that appears on the packets, providing contact information and offering some services. This year, I'm on jury duty for Election Day, so any transportation services will have to be after we're released for the day; please leave a message at my home office, 440-439-5757, if you need a ride to the polls.

Some people are predicting a Democratic bloodbath this year; I've never been that interested in predicting the future. All we can do is to do our part and hope that the electorate is wise enough not to be misled by misleading campaigning.

But there's no disputing that this election is exceptionally important. State elections will not only fill their various offices: they'll determine who sets the boundaries for legislative districts that we'll have to live with for the next ten years. We need to get out all of our voters and hope for the best. With your help and support, we can have some successes this year!

Getting Started

Dear fellow Bedford citizen,

Allow me to introduce myself. In May, I was elected Democratic Central Committee Member for Bedford Precinct 6B. Although I had served in this capacity a few years ago, this time I took office in a period of great turmoil for Cuyahoga County in general and for Democrats in particular. Public anger at an alleged pattern of corruption among some county officials led voters then to approve a county reform issue called "Issue 6." That anger resulted in the removal of Jimmy Dimora as County Democratic Chair, and I was able to join other elected Democratic officials the next month in electing Stuart Garson as the new party chair.

Although I have never met Chairman Garson, I have seen enough of his letters and heard enough of his speeches to know that our party is in good hands again. He is low-key and no-nonsense, and I think those are attributes that we can use after the drama of Jimmy Dimora's administration. I believe it is possible to bring both our party and our county back, and I look forward to working with him and with you in the years ahead to do just that.

Lynn and I have lived here virtually all our adult lives--since 1972, to be precise. We are pretty thoroughly invested in the community: we were longtime members of the now-closed St. Mary Parish, and our children attended the Bedford City Schools. (One of them now teaches kindergarten at her own primary school, Central; another owns the house next door.) My work with the Democratic Party is simply a part of my desire to make our home town better.

If I can be of assistance, please let me know. Specifically, let me know if you need any of the following:

• a voter registration form;
• a ride to the polls on Election Day;
• an absentee ballot mailed or dropped off at the Board of Elections.

Similarly, if you would be willing to put up a yard sign or put a bumper on your car, please let me know and I'll get one for you.

You can reach me at 440-439-5757, or by email at StageCoach@lavezzi.name.

For our community,

Bill Lavezzi