Rep. McNally Condemns Governor's Statement on Citizens Not Politicians Amendment

COLUMBUS- State Rep. Lauren McNally (D-Youngstown) today released the following statement concerning Governor Mike DeWine’s failure to support the Citizens Not Politicians citizen-led ballot initiative: 

“Politicians like Governor DeWine just can’t take a hint. Ohioans do not trust him. As a member of the Redistricting Commission, he supported maps that favored his political party and gave them unchecked power, resulting in an extreme state government that’s completely out of touch with the people living here. Now he’s asking Ohioans to trust those same politicians to come back to the drawing board with yet another process that politicians would still control. More than 700K Ohioans signed their names to a petition to put Citizens Not Politicians on the ballot. His speech could not be more condescending,” said Rep. McNally.

“These supermajorities make it hard for Republicans to hear anything other than the sound of their own voices, because right now they don’t have to. That’s exactly what Ohioans want to stop. At the ballot box, more than once and by huge margins, Ohioans told them they care about proportionality. They told them they care about how partisan makeup influences the drawing of districts. When Governor DeWine and his accomplices ignored that and shoved their gerrymandered, unconstitutional maps down Ohioans throats, he lost any credibility on our perceptions on this subject. Let’s be clear - DeWine and the Republican Party want to continue as is. This is their agenda and it’s a very, very political one.

Ohioans are taking the power back. We saw it with the results of the August special election, another GOP manufactured power grab meant to silence the will of voters, and again in November when Ohioans reclaimed the power over their own bodies. Ohioans won’t be fooled by this latest scheme.”