(Upper Sandusky, Ohio) On February 22, 2022, Ohio Attorney General David Yost wrote an open letter to the top elected officials in Ohio’s government detailing the current constitutional crisis facing Ohio’s upcoming primary and general elections and lays out several scenarios as possible actions to be taken by the Ohio General Assembly. Yost states in the 2nd paragraph; “You do not answer to me, but the people of Ohio…as do I. We have parallel duties to the same superior.”

Exactly! The People of Ohio spoke loudly and clearly in 2015 and 2018 with voters overwhelmingly stating their desire for Fair Districts and to remove gerrymandering in designing new state and federal districts. However, during much of 2021 Ohio Republicans stalled and stymied Ohioans’ constitutional concerns and their rights every chance they could with baseless and totally inexcusable actions. Additionally, Republicans unwavering refusal to pass reasonable Congressional and State Legislative maps in Ohio is going to cost Ohio voters over 20 million dollars. That is taxpayer dollars that is not going to our schools, building new roads, repairing bridges or supporting our communities needs. It's an incredible waste of public money for extreme hubris and greed.

Ohio Republicans have blatantly thwarted this entire process and brought us to the brink of Ohio’s worst constitutional crisis in history. This is not hyperbole either when you consider other actions taken by Yost and his colleagues in the General Assembly since the 2020 election wasting taxpayer money by filing amicus briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court citing spurious claims about security concerns surrounding the general election in an attempt to obfuscate their real intention to subvert Ohioans’ voting rights.

This entire episode of their derailment of the redistricting process in Ohio has left oppositional candidates, like myself, in limbo, unable to communicate effectively with voters and raise awareness to our campaigns, which in all likelihood, is the Republicans’ real intent.