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Reducing the Complexity of Government

RETURN TO ISSUES

Eighty percent of Ohioans do not know who their State House Rep and State Senator are. The reason they cite is that their districts get gerrymandered every 10 years and they are uncertain who they vote for. We propose changes to permanently stop changing our State Districts.

Weighted voting for our House Reps based on population.

Weighted voting would assign a weight to a vote based on population. In Ohio, we would use county boundaries for our state districts. Every county regardless of the population gets one vote. Every county that exceeds 250,000 in the population they get one vote for every 250,000 in population. So a county having a population of 1 million persons would get 1 vote for their county and 3 votes for every 250,000 in the population above the first 250,000. When a House Rep that represents a county of 1 million votes on bills their vote cast represents 4 votes.

Not many counties in Ohio exceed 250,000. So not many house reps would cast more than 1 vote. 

This system makes it easy for those that live in high population counties to know who their representative is. Gerrymandering is permanently eliminated.

For Senate districts, we propose that county commissioners vote on a contiguous county to pair with. The State legislature would help resolve any disputes.

Today, we have 99 House Reps and 33 Senators. This new system would give us 88 House Reps (one for each county) and 44 Senators (one for every two counties). The overall number of our representatives stay the same, they just shift from one chamber to another.

We also recommend an electoral college for electing State officers. This happens to dampen the influence of high population counties and cities dictating rules and laws for the rest of the state. It would help to encourage Statewide candidates to visit and hear the concerns of those in counties with smaller populations. For example, it is much more likely that Ohio's Appalachia counties would get programs like developing broadband and infrastructure so it can attract more businesses to Ohio. Even though Appalachia has tremendous natural gas reserves and minerals that add greatly to Ohio's GDP, they get very little state money because they are not high-population counties.

  

Change Ohio House Districts

Ohio House Districts are complicated and fraught with political parties drawing lines in their best interests. They wind-up being partial counties, and the lines get redrawn every ten years. Let's keep it simple and permanent. We advocate for tying each Ohio State House Rep seat to a county. This simplification will reduce the number of State Representatives from 99 to 88.

Weighted Voting for House Members

The House of Representatives represents the population. And, the Senate represents an area. We advocate keeping the number of officeholders of the House of Representative's constant and giving them a weighted vote based on population. Weighted voting based on population keeps things simple and takes the politics out of redrawing districts. Weighted voting would eliminate gerrymandered districts.

Each State Representative has one vote for the first 0-250,000 in population, and one vote for every 250,000 in population after that.

Franklin County would get five votes, Cuyahoga County would get four votes, Hamilton County would get three votes, Summit and Montgomery Counties would get two votes each, and the rest of the Ohio counties would get one vote each.

Change Ohio Senate Districts

We advocate for expanding Ohio Senate Districts from 33 to 44. Every Senator would represent two contiguous Counties in Ohio. This simplification stops gerrymandering and makes it easy for people to determine who their Senator is.

State Electoral College for State Officers

It was good enough for the Founding Fathers to put it into the United States Constitution. It should be good enough for us to put it in the Ohio Constitution.

A State electoral college would dampen the influence of high population counties and give lower population counties a more significant voice.

In this proposal, every race for a State officer is through an electoral college. Each county is a winner-take-all county. Each county casts one ballot for the first 0-250,000 in population and one ballot for every 250,000 in population after that.

Example: Franklin County would cast five ballots, Cuyahoga County would cast four ballots, Hamilton County would cast three ballots, Summit and Montgomery Counties would cast two ballots each, and the rest of the Ohio counties would cast one ballot each.

The Committee for a Better Ohio is a 501(c)4 Non-Profit
Donations made to Committee for a Better Ohio are not Tax Deductible by Law

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