Receipts on how hard the GOP works to keep their rigging of elections behind closed doors.
Please share widely.
First, here’s a page from the PowerPoint presented at the 2010 RNC districting training. The presenter of this PowerPoint was a consultant for Ohio.
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They began having meetings in early July 2011, including with that consultant.
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Here is the email confirming the long-term room rental at the Double Tree hotel, so they could meet in secret. They would call this room “the bunker.”
They would go on to rent the room for 91 days
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They began meeting every Thursday beginning on July 11, in secret. In the bunker.
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Their own timeline makes it clear that most of the work was being done BEFORE the public “road show.”
This work included the sharing of multiple maps, slicing and dicing the state.
But they WROTE DOWN that they wanted to hold the final map “in the can” until the very end.
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They would also use the “bunker” to shepherd individual politicians in to review the maps.
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The consultants made clear they did not want any sharing of “external maps” as part of the conversation. (There had been public competitions as to what the most fair maps would actually look like).
Only what they drew up.
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Also, notice that it looks as if the staff working on these matters are public staff. They also appeared at formal meetings as if they were public staff
In fact, they had temporarily resigned & worked as private contractors, making $210,00 over the course of the rigging
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One other thing…some may say this was ten years ago. It’s new people now.
It’s not new people! Guess who was part of this ten years ago…Matt Huffman and Keith Faber, who sit in the districting committee today. DeWine was the sitting AG. LG Husted was on the committee.
So yes, the fact that they’ve had one formal meeting that lasted 15 minutes, and most of them aren’t showing up at the public hearings, and that only weeks remain, makes it crystal clear that they’re doing this all again.
Hence my questions yesterday…
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Quick story on why Ohio is about to explode in COVID cases:
A friend in a mid-sized rural county mentioned a few weeks ago how worried she was about her kids in school there. There’s no mask mandate—not even a debate on whether to have one.
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She went to a school pre-meeting and said it was packed….that she and her kids were about the only people wearing masks.
She already felt trapped then. That it was far too risky.
School started on the 19th. She says you can count on one hand the kids wearing masks.
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Teachers are not required to wear masks.
When she told the school nurse her older child was vaccinated, the nurse was surprised.
Last week, a student in her younger child’s class tested positive. The school’s policy is that it is up to the parent whether or not to keep…
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These are two of our pets. On the left is one of our dogs, Manchi. On the right is our cat, Dinker.
My wife Alana had Dinker for 4 years before we got married. We got Manchi about a year before we got married.
When we moved in together,
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…let’s just say it was a challenge.
Although he doesn’t bite, Manchi is a very feisty dog. Barks at everything, no matter how big or small. But Dinker would also fight back fiercely, hissing & trying to scratch if he came close
So we had to work hard to keep them separate
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Sometimes, if Dinker was in the wrong room at the wrong time, the chase became so intense we worried one of the two might have a heart attack. Barks and squeals and hisses exploded in the room and we ran in to break it up.
So we just kept them apart. Not just different rooms
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I don't talk much about it, but @AOC 's brave comments brought home my own experience, decades ago, when I was abducted at gun point for an hour.
The feeling that your life may end, that your fate is wholly in someone else's hands, that you have no control...
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...never leaves you.
The emotions don't disappear after the situation ends, but they do evolve, from fear to anger--that anyone else would claim for themselves the role of determining whether you live or die. That anyone dared place themselves in that position is enraging.
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And when you see similar situations that arise--a video on the evening news of a 7/11 being robbed at gunpoint, for example--you remember it all again. The feeling of seeing that gun pointed right at you. The lack of control.
For a number of very good people, today is their last day at @OHDems
I want to personally thank them for their service. From @ForwardFalcon to @Vashitta7 to @BennettGretchen to @psbarnacle & others, these good folks left it all on the field, every year, up & down the ballot
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If you are happy to see @OHDems enjoying a stronger, broader local footprint of elected officials than we’ve had in years, thank @ForwardFalcon .
If you liked that we gave @FrankLaRose hell on drop boxes, proving his lie in court again and again, thank @BennettGretchen
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If you believe in registering voters through thick and thin, even in a pandemic, thank @Vashitta7 — who led our voter registration hub effort w passion and creativity
If you believe in the need for good data and training on/access to data at all levels, thank @psbarnacle
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