HB 319

It was a cold, blustery day but our intrepid band of volunteers sat adjacent to the Veterans Memorial Park in downtown Washington Court House collecting signatures for the Referendum To Repeal HB 319.

Sherrod Brown's robo-calls worked. Nearly everyone who came to sign the petition had received a call from Senator Brown to tell them that we would be located there to have the petitions to sign.

Dorothy, Michael, Marie, Dan, Gail and Sharon and I manned the table in shifts and despite gusts of wind blowing away our flyers, we prevailed and collected enough signatures to guarantee our committed 3%. Just as with SB5 we need to collect more than the required amount of signatures because we need to send a message to Kasich and the legislators, plus we also know that the Secretary of State and his minions will be doing everything they can to reject signatures. When we collect enough signatures we can hold the politicians accountable who concocted this ridiculous bill.

In a craven political move to deny Ohioans fair representation in Congress, the Ohio House passed Bill 319. It is unfair that they drew a map which does not reflect Ohio. A full 3/4 of the districts drawn are for one party. The map slices and dices Ohio communities into separate districts, essentially taking away our voice in Congress. How does it make any sense that Fayette County would be in the same district as part of metropolitan Dayton? They drew lopsided districts that would guarantee that they remain in power. The House districts are so gerrymandered that voters wouldn't be able to kick them out of office.

The deadline for the petitions is December 23, 2011. Please call, e-mail or Facebook message me to arrange a time to sign.