Jesse Hart was born and raised in Columbus and currently lives in Worthington with his wife and three children.
The powers that be are shaking in their boots over whatshould happen on Nov. 3.
That's the day Columbus voters will be asked to consider changes to the city council via Issue 8and Issue 9.
For those unfamiliar, Issue 8 would make it so city council members are elected only by voters in their district, instead of the current system where district members are elected by a citywide vote.
Issue 9 would also make this change, and in addition would create four at-large seats on the council.
In 2018, Columbus voted yes on Issue 3 to change how council is elected, so that instead of having seven at-large members, the council would have nine by-district
members.
Issue 3 made this and other changes in order to improve accountability in elections, as it was obvious that a city political machine was running the place without much input from communities.
The catch and why they are scared
Weirdly, the change did not restrict voters to those within the district; it only required that the candidate live in the district.
Imagine all of Ohio getting to vote in the Columbus race for the House of Representatives – it’s antidemocratic on its face. This became very clear when Tiara Ross beat Jesse Vogelto represent District 7.She won the race by a very small margin citywide, but voters within the district voted overwhelmingly for Vogel.
What’s worse, Ross moved into the district three days before the deadline mandated by Issue 3, and her campaign was bankrolled by current council members.
Vogel has been an active and positive force in Columbus, and as an attorney working for immigrants, is a prime candidate to meet this moment of unconstitutional detention and ICE terror. The voters in his district agreed. Unfortunately, Tiara Ross was already a machine insider, and the whole system lined up behind her.
This is how the establishment maintains itself. And it’s why they’re scared of Issue 8.
Issue 8 would make it so all members - Ross included- actually have to win a majority of the vote within their districts.
It threatens their carefully crafted status quo.
If they truly believed in representation, they would have made a deal with Our City Our Say, the group that worked to put Issue 8 on the ballot.
Instead, they crafted their own last-minute proposal to maintain council power by confusingly re-adding at-large council members in addition to Issue 8 by-district representation, making it look like they are merely expanding on a good idea when in reality they are attempting to entrench their power.
The sneaky part is that if 8 wins by a higher percentage but they both pass, 9 still goes into effect.
This is why I’m asking you to take a closer look, and I hope you come to the same conclusion as I have: that Columbus should vote yes on Issue 8 and no on Issue 9.
Jesse Hart was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio, and currently lives in Worthington with his wife and three children. He works as a property accountant at a Columbus real estate firm.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Sneaky Columbus council trying to maintain power with fake voting reform | Opinion
