The Republican massacre of Summit County districts

  As you might have suspected, Summit County's two Republican congressmen voted against the debt ceiling increase while the county's two Democrats supported  the clean bill offered by House Speaker John Boehner.  The nays were Rep. Jim Renacci and Rep. David Joyce;  the yeas, Rep. Tim Ryan and Rep. Marcia Fudge.

About Joyce:  Wasn't he the guy who succeeded Steve LaTourette and billed as a moderate in the mode of his predecessor?   We're still waiting, folks.  Renacci, meanwhile, has been a perfect fit for the Tea Party.

Since the congressional districts were mercilessly gerrymandered by  Republicans,  Summit County's bizarre carving have left us  with four congressmen who don't have homes in the  county.  (For comparison's  sake, Gaul had only three parts.)   Religious scholars might  call it penance for the sin for long harboring  the late John Seiberling back when the liberal Democrat  represented the entire county.

Today, Renacci calls Wadsworth home; Fudge,  Warrensville Hgts; Joyce,  Russell Townshp in Geauga County, and Ryan, Howland ( near Warren).

On the map, the four new districts are virtually indescribable, appearing as though they fell off a truck.    Look for yourself.

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Sen.  Rob Portman can't be feeling too chipper these days.   The latest Public Policy Poll revealed the Ohio Republican  is taking a heavy shelling from voters for his vote against extending unemployment  insurance.  The PPP figures say 51 pct. of the Buckeye voters are now less likely to vote for him; only 27 pct. more likely.

According to the pollster, Portman, a passive sort of pol, is "pretty undefined with voters right now.  36 pct. have no opinion one way or the other, with only 28 pct. approving of him to 35 pct. who disapprove.   He doesnt have the kind of politlcal capital stored up that lets you vote against something  more than 60 pct. of your constituents support."


As I've mentioned before, one of Portman's favorite responses  when the other side doesn't agree with his position is that he's disappointed.  In the wake of the PPP poll, he has a lot to be disappointed about.

UPDATE: Portman voted NO on cutting off debate to raise debt limit, defying Senate minority leader McConnell; Ohio's Democratic senator, Sherrod Brown voted yea. Measure passed handily.  If it had failed, it could have led to another government shutdown. Way to go, Rob!

Why am I now grouped with Cleveland voters?

To my despair,  I have learned that my neighborhood in Fairlawn, which is a few minutes away from Akron, is in the Eleventh Congressional District.  That means my vote will be dumped into the new boundaries that include Euclid, East Cleveland, Shaker Heights and  Cleveland. My  congresswoman will be Marcia Fudge, a Democrat,  the former mayor of Warrensville Heights.  I'm sure she is a competent representative.   But I live in Fairlawn, some distance from the bulk of her constituents. Excuse me if as a voter I feel isolated from the crowd.  Excuse me again if I say the Republicans responsible for  butchering the new congressional districts couldn't have cared less about the relationship between the People's House on Capitol Hill and me. Am I not a people?

Did I say People's House?  Defining people has taken some strange turns this political season.  Mitt Romney insisted that corporations are people.  And the   gang in Columbus that isolated my neighborhood in an alien  Cleveland  people zone was greedily at work in  building a still greater GOP force in Congress that already boasts of 12 of the state's 16 congressional seats.
Their math is telling.   May we conclude that three out of four Ohioans are Republicans even though the state went to Barack Obama in 2008?

A little history of this ridiculous scheme:  When I arrived in Summit County more than four decades ago , there was but one congressman,   Bill Ayers, a Republican.  He was ousted by Democrat John Seiberling in 1970.  To no avail, the local Republican front office spent many restless nights trying to figure out how to win back the county.

It didn't get any easier in 1987 when Seiberling retired and turned the seat over to Tom Sawyer, the city's Democratic mayor. After more restless nights,  the local and State GOP decided  the best way to rid the county of Sawyer after 15 years was to carve  up his district, pitting him against Tim Ryan, of Niles, in the Democratic primary.  It was a no-win  challenge to Sawyer with the eastern part of the county dumped into  Ryan-leaning territory.  The county has now evolved into three congressional districts with Fudge, Ryan and Republican Steve LaTourette (a bit of the northern patch  of the county).

It's a mess  from the Master Carvers of Columbus. (There was a moment or two when I thought my neighborhood would end up in Toronto).

Ah. but others have taken note of this villainous handiwork.  Voters First, set up by the League of Women Voters, has filed petitions with the Secretary of State - more than 430,000 signatures - to place a constitutional amendment on the November ballot to create a non-partisan  citizens commission to draw up district boundaries.  I hope it works , but at least I am now assured that there are 430,000 others in this a state who care about fairer representatation as much as I do.


UPDATE: Thanks to a reader, I now can tell you that the goulash called Summit County congressional districts is even more tasteless.  The county actually has four congressmen - four!   I have overlooked Democratic Rep. Betty Sutton, which  ended up with a horribly malformed district  zigzagging south across part of the county  from Lorain to Green.       How did my new district escape Toronto?   I stand corrected.  


UPDATE NO. 2:  A Republican called to inform me that there were four congressmen with bits of Summit County in 1972 when Democrats drew the lines.  The one that escaped me was a single township  assigned to the late  Rep. John Ashbrook.  So I must ask:  Is there anyone out there who can report five?  

Three is not a crowd in Tim Ryan's Youngstown district

IT DIDN'T TAKE the gay-bashers more than a second or two to befoul the internet with their ugliest comments after Mahoning County Democratic Chairman David Betras announced that Rep. Barney Frank will be the keynote speaker at a party fundraiser in mid-August. Homophobia and racism will always be with us and a blog's "open mike" is only a modern convenience for the haters who used to spend more of their time scribbling on bathroom walls. .

Meantime, Betras, who impresses you as an unflinching free spirit, says he couldn't care less about what the off-the-page critics are saying about his choice. It is a sort of Youngstown gift of self-styled political immunity that has been around for a long time.

"This is big for the Mahoning Valley," Betras told the Youngstown Vindicator. "Anytime I can get powerful people to the Valley, I'll do it. We'll have him in a room with Valley people to discuss our issues and concerns. It can only help the area having him here," Frank says of the visit by Frank (Clue: Frank, a Democrat, is chairman of the House Financial services Committee, through whom many blessings can flow.)

There's also a congressional campaign going on in Betras' 17th district involving Tim Ryan, the popular Democratic congressman , and a once-widely popular ex-congressman, Jim Traficant, the 69-year-old convicted felon who completed a seven- year prison term ( bribery and corruption) in time to file as an independent candidate. There's also a Republican candidate, Jim Graham, a Cortland pharmacist, that Betras refuses to discuss, saying only: "I don't like Republicans!"

Need I mention that it is a heavily Democratic district? Betras and some other observers believe Ryan is heading for victory, but concede that Traficant still maintains a die-hard corps or loyalists. And there may be complications. David Skolnick, the Vindicator's political writer, says that although Traficant hasn't been on the ballot for eight years , "he certainly has his followers" but hasn't made anypersonal appearances in the District lately.

There may be a name ID for Graham, Skolnick says, that could have confusion value. Graham's cousin, also named Jim Graham, is the UAW president in the district who is supporting Ryan.

Over at Youngstown State University political science Prof . Keith Lepak enthusiastically says he's a great fan of Traficant and would easily vote for him - but can't. "I live in Sharon, Pennsylvania," he says.

Traficant, Lepak says, is an "archetypical representative of the district. He's fantastic!" Lepak says he admires Traficant's "great political skills" and his ability to shake things up. On the other hand, Lepak describes Ryan as a "nice young man but a stuffed shirt."

Even if that were true - and I haven't found it so in my few meetings with Ryan - I don't think it will cost him the election against a convicted felon running on nothing more than nostalgia for his good old days and a what's-his-name Republican - even for the Youngstown district where there are occasionally a few surprises.