To those who doubt Thomas Sawyer, the 'Grownup'

A funny thing has happened in the  gathering of Akron mayoral candidates. In the closing days before the Monday deadline for the official ballot listing of their names,    only one  continues to tease everybody on whether he is serious about leading the city for the next four years.

Former mayor Tom Sawyer, who currently resides term-limited in the Ohio Senate, apparently figures he will gain more public attention by avoiding a direct answer until the final hours of the deadline. Might there be one more campaign contributor still undecided?   Might there still be one job or another in a new administration awaiting him?

Folks, it's a masterful form of coy political gamesmanship.  But as the 69-year-old Democrat  told the Beacon Journal:  "I have  devoted a lot of my life to this community.  Finding the best way to continue to do that  is what this weekend's decision is all about."

Well, now.  Who has already had more time and political experience to find the "best way" than Sawyer?   Would a few more days of brinksmanship matter that much?   Count me as one who is Doubting Thomas.

When he first emerged as a potential candidate weeks ago,  he said he had yet to decide whether he would actually run.  He said he wanted to  be in the conversation as the "grownup".   Such hubris!

 Sorry, but we've seen little evidence that this is what being a "grownup" is all about.

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?  

Ohio House redistricting; For cubism lovers only

BY THE TIME the Ohio House finishes its ignoble tinkering, my little neighborhood in Fairlawn will have been dumped into a Muskegon congressional district. Either there or Wilkes-Barre. Nothing is certain when the political carnivores set their sights on exiling voters to where they can do the least harm to the ruling political class in charge of protecting the careers of its sitting congressmen.

We have come to know it as gerrymandering - as in Elbridge Gerry and salamander - and if you've have a chance to look at the jigsaw puzzle that the Republicans at the Statehouse have proposed in their redistricting map you'll get a pretty good idea of what matters the most in politics. We must suffer it with new census figures every 10 years and it will be uglier this year with Ohio's loss of two more congressional seats.

In their wisdom the GOPers have proposed a ribbon of a district (9th) that connects Toledo with Cleveland! Still in an innovative mood, the new map would link Summit County to Cuyahoga, Medina, Trumbull and Geauga Counties and possibly Toronto. That hasn't been decided as yet. The district that slices through Akron appears to have been drawn by a drunken cubist painter. Or M.C. Escher.

Alas, Akron. The city once was well represented solely by the late John Seiberling, followed by Tom Sawyer, both of whom were tightly ensconced in the area's history, identity and needs. A decade ago, the yearning of local Republican officials to get rid of Sawyer (the former Akron mayor) carved out a new district heavily weighted by Youngstown voters. When the GOP redistricting crew wound up its work , Summit County had three congressmen - east, west and north. That was a first for the county. Did I tell you that the crowd that has taken up residence at the Statehouse can be imaginative? There's even talk that the county could end up with four congressmen. With the Ohio House, all things are wretchedly possible, if not in the spirit of basic public service.

As for those concerns for the folks who need easy access to their congressmen, many will have to make long-distance calls. And I'll bet you may have thought that the perps were in office to tend honorably to your business. Think again, folks. Again. You and your alleged lawmakers live in different universes.