Left Wing gets a big NO in the Buckeye state.

While not getting any of the nation press as issues in Maine, Texas and California, issues 2 thru 5 on the Ohio ballot yesterday represented a big battle between the left and right.

Most prognosticators, including Fox News, had all 4 issues with the possible exception of #4 passing. As it turned out they went down, hard.

Todays Columbus Dispatch feels that their failure of the issues is a result of, “their complicated and confusing ballot language”. Ah, so I see. The issues failed due to the voters not being smart enough and since I voted no on all 4 I am left too assume I “didn’t get it”. Of course I beg to differ, so let’s take a look.

First all 4 issues are nothing more than an attempt by left wingers, upset over the ’04 Presidential vote in Ohio going for Bush, to rewrite the Ohio Constitution in a way that they hoped would permanently weaken the Republican party in the state. Only the hard left base was for this push as many prominent Dems and newspapers, including the Plain Dealer urged a no vote. Even Jimmy Dimora -- a Democratic Commissioner for Cuyahoga County and head of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party urged a “no” vote on 2 thru 5. So this was a push from the fringe that garnered, at best, half-hearted support from Democratic leaders.

Let’s look at the issues;

#2 – Claimed to make absentee voting easier. What is would have done was take the current rules already on the books and written them into the Constitution. Opponents stated that the laws already existed and didn’t belong in the Constitution.
No: 64% Yes; 36%

#3 – Claimed to be removing big business and special interested from campaign financing. What it would have done is maxed out personal donations at $1,000, donations from businesses at $1,000, donations from PACs at $1,000 and donations from unions at $10,000. That’s right, unions could spend 10 times as much as anyone else. The opponents of the issue simply pointed this out.
No: 67% Yes: 33%

#4 – Claimed to make voting districts “fairer” by setting up a board of appointees that would do the redistricting and eliminate Republican gerrymandering. What it would have done is created god awful districts in an effort to ensure 50-50 Dem / Repub representation in each district. It would have resulted in districts stretching from inner Cleveland to the hills of SE Ohio, 150 miles away, in order to get the 50-50 split. It even allowed for districts to not be contiguous! Opponents simply showed a picture of what the new districts would look like.
No: 70% Yes: 30%

#5 – Claimed to be removing graft and corruption in the election process. What is would have done is striped election oversight from the office of the Secretary of State and given it to a an oversight board of appointees. Opponents asked voters who they trusted more, a SoS that was elected and at least somewhat beholden to the people or a group of unelected political appointees.
No: 71% Yes: 29%