Partisan Gerrymandering

Floor Speech

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Ms. KAPTUR. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me, and I really want to thank him, first of all, for his FAIR MAPS Act.

Ohio is the poster child for unfair maps. If you look at a State that voted twice for President-elect Trump and twice for President Obama, you would think that, for example, if the State has 15 Members, that it would be 8 and 7, you would sort of try to divide it equally because of 15 Members of Congress from Ohio and what is fair is fair.

What has happened in Ohio, because of a veto-proof legislature, due to gerrymandering in Ohio, in both chambers, what happens is that out of 15 seats, our side of the aisle, in Columbus, what they did down there, we have only 5 Democrats out of 15, only 33 percent, not 50 percent out of the 15. To be fair, if you have 15 seats, maybe it should be 8 and 7, you know, but to give us equal voice based on the public's right to full representation. Ohio is really the poster child for radical gerrymandering.

Recently, the polls showed that three-quarters of the people of Ohio wanted reform, and they wanted to set up a special independent commission to draw the districts in Ohio. The vast majority of people wanted change.

What happened? In Ohio, that issue was put on the ballot, but the secretary of state, who has been part of this veto-proof, one-party rule in Ohio that has become corrupt actually--Ohio is an extremely corrupt State right now, I am sad to say. People have gone to prison and more will go to prison because absolute power corrupts absolutely, including in gerrymandering.

There was this initiative that was placed on the ballot that the people voted to put on the ballot, but what did the secretary of state and attorney general in Ohio do? They wrote a gerrymandering proposition that was placed on the ballot that took up 3 pages. When the people went in to vote, just reading that, on these computers that we vote on now, took so much effort, the measure failed by a small margin because they were afraid. They didn't know what it was exactly, and it was made so complicated. Study Ohio as a classic case of hurting the people and not giving fair representation.

I just wanted to place that on the record so that those who are listening across this Chamber, across the intelligent media in our country, and the people of Ohio could hear this because they are not being represented fairly, and voices are being suppressed. That really goes against the very principle of one person, one vote and one person, one mind, to be able to have all of those views properly reflected.

I thank the Congressman for introducing the FAIR MAPS Act and focusing on this really critical matter of a democratic voice for the people of the United States of America. I can't compliment him enough. I am proud of his work and thank him for doing this.

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