If you want a great indication of how grotesque the American representative democracy has become at the hand of two political parties, look no further than OHIO.
in 2018, the PEOPLE of Ohio amended their own Constitution TO CHANGE CONGRESSIONAL REDISTRICTING to be more NEUTRAL and therefore, more representative of Ohioans. Importantly, the issue got on the BALLOT because the "representatives" of the people of Ohio COULD NOT agree on redistricting. The amendmnet rwads like a series of neitral options for redistricting:
The state legislature would adopt a 10-year congressional redistricting plan with 60 percent of members in each chamber voting in favor and 50 percent of Republicans and 50 percent of Democrats (or whichever two parties have the most members in the legislature) voting in favor.
Should the state legislature fail to meet these vote requirements, then the seven-member Ohio Redistricting Commission, established via Issue 1 in 2015, would get a chance to adopt a 10-year congressional redistricting plan, with support from at least two members of the minority party.
Should the commission fail to adopt a plan, the legislature would get a second opportunity to adopt a 10-year plan, but with a lesser requirement of one-third of the members from the two major parties supporting the proposal.
Failure at this stage would result in the legislature adopting a plan through a simple majority vote, with no bipartisan vote requirement but stricter criteria, and with the plan lasting two general election cycles (four years), rather than 10 years.
So, how did it go in 2020?
Well, the GOP led legislature basically ignored the PEOPLE"s amendment. The ACLU had to step in and the Ohio Supreme Court had to reject the GOP plan:
"The Ohio Supreme Court struck down GOP-drawn state House and Senate district maps as unconstitutional gerrymandering in a 4-3 decision Wednesday, sending the maps back to the drawing board.
Advocates of redistricting reform hailed the decision as a resounding victory for Ohio voters who overwhelmingly approved changes to the state constitution to limit partisan line-drawing in 2015.
“This ruling sends a clear message to lawmakers in Ohio: they may not put politics over people," said attorney Freda Levenson, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, who argued for opponents of the maps.
The Ohio Supreme Court ruled that the Ohio Redistricting Commission – which is tasked with drawing legislative maps and dominated by Republicans – could not ignore parts of the Ohio Constitution that required them to attempt to match the statewide voting preferences of voters, according to the court's majority opinion, written by Justice Melody Stewart.
This is all because state legislatures have become the new battleground because the federal government is basically locked in partisan gridlock.
