To the editor:

There has been a great deal of confusion about what issue one does and doesn’t do. Let me help. What it does do is to create a bureaucratic commission that is completely unaccountable to taxpayers which eliminates voter influence over redistricting in Ohio — a tradition that has existed since our state’s founding. It also undoes anti-gerrymandering provision that overwhelming majorities of Ohio voters approved in 2015 and 2018.

Issue 1 would allow retired politicians to handpick their friends and political cronies to serve on this commission and leave voters little recourse in the courts to sue for harm that might be caused by gerrymandering legislative districts. These districts could combine large geographic regions into a district in the name of “fairness” even putting next-door neighbors into different districts. A similar plan was adopted several years ago in Michigan where district maps were so clearly distorted that federal courts ruled the districts drawn by their commission was “radical gerrymandering.”

More than $25 million dollars have been spent by out-of-state secret special interest groups whose ultimate goal is to gain power over Ohioans by distorting our representation in Congress. Say no to these special interest groups and vote no on Issue 1.

Albert Macre

Wintersville