Doug Burks, Norwood

We bought our house in Norwood, Ohio a city surrounded by the City of Cincinnati, in 1979.  Since we have lived here, we have been in Ohio U.S. Congressional District 1 twice and District 2 twice. Three sides of our community is in District 1, while we are in District 2.  We are part of scraggly finger that juts up into District 1 in Hamilton County. Most of District 2 is composed of 4 rural counties that are heavily Republican while our small area of Urban Hamilton County is heavily Democratic. It is an uncontested Republican district. 

District 1 comprises the rest of our urban county but then goes into heavily Republican counties just enough to give a slight Republican majority.  This enables District 1 to swing Republican in elections. U.S. Congressional Districts 1 and 2 are heavily gerrymandered and are sliced and diced districts that maintain them as Republican. 

I was a litigant in a federal case on gerrymandering where the U.S. District Court ruled that Ohio and the Republicans had gerrymandered districts. Unfortunately, shortly after our case, the Supreme Court ruled that gerrymandering was a state issue, not a federal issue 

We live in an urban area and our concerns are focused on issues such as public transit, sewer and water services, affordable housing, poverty, and food deserts.  Our issues and needs are most aligned with people in Cincinnati that live in District 1. At the federal level, we really have no say on these issues since our U.S. Representative serves his rural constituents and ignores our concerns. Hamilton County is under a decree order to improve its sewer system, but my U.S. Representative does not support federal money for its improvement. 

I feel that my vote does not count because it is politically diluted by gerrymandering. The deck is stacked against Democrats by the political districting to include a majority Republicans in both District 1 and 2.  When we were in District 1, the seat went to Democrats on about 50% of the elections. We were then diced into District 2, and it has only gone Republican since. 

With fair nonpartisan districts, I can accept election results and candidate’s losses.  With partisan districts, I feel like the vote is stolen. Though Ohio districting has changed and will stop the most blatant gerrymandering, it is still politically controlled. We need to work for no partisan control of districts in Ohio. 

Doug Burks,  Norwood, Ohio