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Vote ‘Yes’ on Issue 1 to keep Ohio grounded

DEAR EDITOR:

This November, Ohioans are faced with a monumental decision about how our votes count in our great state.

The Citizens Not Politicians amendment on this year’s ballot will determine whether or not our districts are drawn fairly, competitively and without skewed political interests. This amendment will determine whether or not voters have the power to vote out politicians that push extreme agendas, dangerous bans and out-of-touch policies.

This amendment will determine whether Ohio’s future is controlled by our citizens together, or by politicians alone.

For more than 80 years, we’ve let politicians of both major parties manipulatively control the legislature based on who and what matters to them. Politicians of all stripes have drawn wacky maps with ridiculous districts that even a kindergartner can see don’t make geometric or geographic sense.

When wacky maps prevail, our communities suffer: Black communities are treated as pawns in the mapmaking “packing” and “cracking” games, seeing neighbors stripped apart from each other. Entire cities that don’t meet the approval of the politicians in charge see their municipalities divided two, three, and even more times. And rural Appalachian counties — like the county where I live — end up split right down the middle with neighbors lumped in with big cities more than two hours’ drive away.

The effect of all this gerrymandering is clear: All Ohioans see our political health degraded, our voices diminished, and our politicians in places of permanent power where they are chronically unaccountable to the people of our state.

As an ordained minister and a leader with Faith Choice Ohio, I know that when it comes to actually fixing problems in our communities, citizens always do a better job than politicians.

The moral power of faith communities has advanced progress on issues that matter to Ohioans since our state’s founding, and faith communities are uniting today to support this important change with a Yes On 1. Working in coalition with groups like Ohio Voice, people of faith like me across Ohio are urging a Yes On 1 this year to protect the power of citizens over the interests of politicians. I invite you to join the more than half a million Ohioans from all of our state’s 88 counties whose signatures secured this amendment’s place on the ballot as we make a moral movement for maps we can finally trust in the Buckeye state.

Fairness is an important moral and religious value for me, and I believe it’s a value most Ohioans share no matter their political ideology or religious identity. Fair maps will be a win for all Ohioans and a pathway to a politics of cooperation and community building, not continued division, discord and dysfunction.

Together in November, we can create a fair system for all. Vote Yes On 1 on or before Nov. 5 and make sure citizens, not politicians, get the final word.

REV. TERRY WILLIAMS

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