Ohio has gone “deep red” over the past two decades, and as a result, the Buckeye State is the target of an attempt by the far left to use its dark money machine to permanently favor the blue jerseys. They’re doing it through Ohio State Ballot No. 1.

Every serious person I’ve discussed this with in my home state hates the prospect of unelected bureaucrats with unlimited budgets tasking the entire state with achieving an amorphous goal of “proportionality” in representation. Citizens who sincerely believe in representative government will vote “No” on Issue 1, even if they turn out to vote for Trump/Vance and Bernie Moreno for United States Senate, and even if they are supporters of Harris/Walz/ Being Sherrod Brown.

Even the most partisan Democrat should recoil at this blatant power grab by the far left and its dark money machine.

LAST-MINUTE HEARING COULD DETERMINE IF VULNERABLE HOUSE DEM CAN VOTE FOR ITSELF IN KEY RACE

If Issue 1 passes in Ohio on November 5, the far left’s agenda will move forward in both the short and long term. The terms “far left” and “dark money machine” are often repeated in this column, because what should be a scandal is simply not being addressed in this most consequential of presidential elections. Apologies for the repetition, but it is the ‘hard left’ at work, and the money at its disposal is staggering in total and its origins are deeply hidden behind much happy talk.

Far left, dark money groups are trying to dominate the state. FILE: The Ohio Statehouse on December 18, 2023 (Maddie McGarvey/for The Washington Post)

If Issue 1 passes in the short term, it all but guarantees that Democrats will capture eight or nine of Ohio’s 15 congressional seats. Republicans currently hold 10 of those 15 seats, after a bipartisan committee took nearly two years to reach a standard acceptable to the Ohio Supreme Court.

The left wasn’t happy with that outcome, even though Ohio’s map of congressional districts is among the most reasonable in the country. The left’s first attempt to amend the state constitution failed to thwart the will of the people, so it produced and submitted to voters a 26-page Jackson Pollock painting of a ballot measure that would install gerrymandering within gerrymandering , all bundled together as ‘citizens not’. politicians.” The money pouring into Ohio to impose this Rube Goldberg machine on Buckeyes is staggering.

The dark money behind this Trojan Horse of a ballot measure now totals over $24 million. That’s right: $24 million to tie a bizarre, convoluted scheme to the Ohio state constitution, almost all of it coming from left-wingers from outside the state.

Less than 1% of the massive spending on this power grab comes from individual Buckeyes. Tens of millions come from the left’s dark money machine.

The Sixteen Thirty Fund, founded by Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss, has poured $6 million into the effort to impose permanent left-wing gerrymandering on my home state. “Several left-wing DC organizations contributed $1 million or more,” Ohio Senate Republicans reported earlier this year. “Article IV gave $2 million, Our American Future Foundation gave $1.5 million, The Tides Foundation of San Francisco contributed $2 million,” the report continued. “The Open Policy Center and the DC-based Unite and Renew Fund each gave $500,000. And the far-left ACLU Union Foundation of New York contributed $1 million.”

Ohio already has a “redistricting commission,” created by a statewide vote in 2015, and it is part of the state constitution. The composition and mandate are clear and easy to understand – the seven members include the governor, secretary of state and state auditor and one appointee from each of the majority and minority in both houses of the state legislature. And the committee must adhere to clear instructions about keeping cities, counties and townships together in a congressional district whenever possible.

The committee produced congressional maps that attempted to draw district lines so that the state’s majority party, the Republican Party, would dominate, as Democrats did in Massachusetts and California. The Democrats succeeded in halting the Republican efforts. But it wasn’t enough. Number 1’s short-term goal now is to push the House toward a permanent Democratic majority.

However, the long-term “victory” would not be for traditional Democrats. That would apply to the far left, as we see in ‘the Squad’, via the successful imposition of a ruby-red state by a deep blue congressional delegation and, crucially, the ‘proof of concept’ this would provide.

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, right, greets Ohio State Senator and Republican U.S. Senate candidate Matt Dolan during a campaign event in Columbus, Ohio, Monday, March 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Paul Vernon) (AP Photo/Paul Vernon)

When a political play works somewhere in the United States, it spreads like kudzu. For example, marijuana legalization has spread across the country after first blossoming in Colorado. Ditto for the push for decriminalization of crime and the election of non-prosecutors in major urban jurisdictions. The chaos caused by the extreme left is mainly intended to keep the people out and keep the left-wing elites in.

Every statewide elected official in Ohio, starting with the center-right and very popular Governor Mike DeWine, has urged Buckeyes to vote “No on 1.”

Those officials are all Republicans, because, just as California has all Democrats in the entire state, the self-sorting of voters into “red” and “blue” is as advanced in Ohio as it is from Massachusetts to California.

The party of wealthy coastal elites is blue and anchored in Massachusetts, New York and California. The flyover country is largely red, and the Republican Party depends on Texas and Florida as electoral strongholds. The House and Senate are slowly moving toward representing this reality.

The extreme left wants to stop that. It has never been on the agenda of the far left that “the center” and “right” should be represented in any legislature except as symbols. The far left hates the purposefully designed United States Senate, with its two members per state and six-year terms, just as it despises the Electoral College. Both are bulwarks of constitutional government, of a “republican form of government” guaranteed to every state by our framers.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS ADVICE

The electorate knows instinctively that a 26-page initiative cannot boost “good governance” or even merely “normal congressional districts,” unlike those deeply partisan salamander-like districts that immediately followed the creation of the republic as “factions.” . created and manipulated district lines.

That is a feature, not a bug, of our elegant and enduring constitutional structure. We are not a parliamentary system. Ours is a far more stable and enduring republic, built on a federalist design of dual sovereignty between the federal government with limited and enumerated powers and the fifty state governments.

Every statewide elected official in Ohio, starting with the center-right and very popular Governor Mike DeWine, has urged Buckeyes to vote “No on 1.”

The Constitution that binds us all provides in Article IV, Section 4 that “the United States shall guarantee to each State herein contained a republican Form of Government…” That guarantee has been largely left alone over the centuries by the Supreme Court of the United States, because the intention is for the states to adapt their own systems of governance.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

But this provision certainly means there is a limit to what the far left’s dark money machine can impose through machinations like Ohio’s Issue 1. But a constitutional challenge after 1 approval would be a gamble that would take a long time, even if that outcome ultimately comes . of the ‘originalist majority’ in the current court.

Far better for Buckeyes of all stripes to come together and reject this deeply disingenuous ploy. Tell all the Ohio voters you know to vote “No” on Issue 1. Send them this column. Call them up and explain what the trick is here. The stakes are national, and the good news is that the electorate in Ohio, like most of the Midwest, is overwhelmingly center-right, reasonable and moderate. When the smoke clears in a fortnight, pray that Ohio’s electorate has spent enough time studying their ballots and voting in the two major races, thus successfully defeating Issue 1.

Hugh Hewitt hosts “The Hugh Hewitt Show,” heard weekdays from 6:00 to 9:00 a.m. ET on the Salem Radio Network, and simulcast on the Salem News Channel. Hugh is waking up America on over 400 affiliates across the country, and on all streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on Fox News Channel’s roundtable hosted by Bret Baier weekdays at 6:00 PM ET. Hewitt, a son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, has been a professor of law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996, where he teaches constitutional law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio program from Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has appeared regularly on every major national news television network, hosted television programs for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American newspaper, authored a dozen books and moderated about two dozen Republican newspapers. candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-2016 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio program and column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests during his four decades on the air, from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump, and this column previews the top story that will drive today are behind his radio/TV program.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM HUGH HEWITT