Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Guest Post: A Response to Rep. Buchy's Recent Article

Dear Editor

In response to Mr. Buchy's recent letter in the Darke Journal, I wish to take issue with his comments concerning the new Congressional Districts.

Among his comments was this line, "I commend my colleagues who had the courage to stand against their party and support the map that has fair lines"...

From articles written by Ohio reporters it seems that these "fair lines" will heavily favor his party. So much so, that it is estimated that 12 of the 16 districts will likely elect Republicans. That would be understandable if the voting population was so inclined, but I believe that Ohio is fairly even as far as "red" and "blue" voters go. "Fair" lines? Mr. Buchy failed to share the fact that these "lines" were secretly drawn in a Columbus Hotel out of public view and under tutelage of a staff member from Mr. Boehner's staff. This is good government?

Additionally, Mr. Buchy feels that the new districts "will benefit the overall well being of Grand Lake St. Marys. It will provide access to increased federal resources and it will strengthen agriculture."

Holy cow! Aren't Grand Lake's current problems due to the heavy influence (or should I say effluence?) of agriculture? So, it's desirable to give that industry more power? I remain to be persuaded that the interest of the GOP stands with the every day citizen. While they rail against Big Government, it seems that Big Agriculture, Big Banks, Big Pharma, Big Insurance, and Big Wall Street are all OK.

Let's be a bit more reasonable in our pronouncements and not so partisan.

Joseph Hammond
Minster, Ohio

6 comments:

  1. It's time for Mr. Buchy to get out of government work. PERMANENTLY

    ReplyDelete
  2. Pure fact of the matter is that before the 2010 election, several of these current districts had Democrats representing them. The makeup of the state of Ohio could easily swing from the 12-4 representation (13-5 now) in the new districts to 4-12 because that is how close each district is based upon voting percentages. There are essentially 2 very safe Republican seats and 3 very safe Democrat seats. Then there is the other Democrat seat which is mostly safe, while there aren't really any other Republican seats considered "mostly safe." Essentially, if people are that ticked off about it, then they should go out and vote out the "incumbent" republican for the newest democrat sideshow.

    In order to draw districts that would be essentially split 50/50 in terms of Dem and Rep voters, there would be large quantities of the state's population represented by someone who lives nowhere close to them and probably doesn't even know where their town is. You would have an inner-city Cleveland representative speaking out for the interests of all the farmers in Wayne County. How is that right? Fact of the matter is that most of Ohio's Democrat votes come from the inner cities.

    Unfortunately, most people have never given much thought to the redistricting process and how it works in order to understand that differences such as the 12-4 split map, which really isn't even a movement of representatives away from the current 13-5 map, are inevitable. Are some of the districts a bit crazy looking? Yes, but with 16 districts, there is one that is a head scratcher but is perfectly legal, two that make sense but have awkward lines, and the rest are pretty reasonable.

    It is just how it was going to be.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Redistricting should not be a political process. There needs to be some method to do this every 10 years so that the layout is done by people who do not have a political agenda. Otherwise we are doomed to the corrupt two-party system from which we now suffer. Don't get me wrong, I see no viable alternative offering solutions in a third party or candidate. Just this system is wrong and like so many other things needs fixed.

    But I won't hold my breath.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Good lord, people -- get a grip! If it was your "team" drawing the lines, you'd be fine with it! Waa waa waa....all you people do is whine! This is how it works, and always has -- get over it!!! The winner at each 10-year mark gets this important task. If you don't like it, consider it BEFORE the next apportionment board election and quit crying already.

    ReplyDelete
  5. People forget too fast - Democrats in Ohio rejected a bill that would have eliminated that "party in charge" from drawing the lines and would have set up a neutral commission and other guidelines. Thinking they were not going to lose so badly in 2010, they balked. Now they whine. Hard to feel sorry for a party that placed all it's eggs in one basket, then dropped that basket off a cliff.

    ReplyDelete
  6. anonymous at 7:57 has it right, a couple of years ago, the repubs suggested a bi-partisan method of drawing new districts, the democrats, thinking they would control the process, refused, and now they want to whine. obama and the dems are holding the american people hostage, hostage, hostage, they really like that word HOSTAGE.

    ReplyDelete

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