"The people of Columbus are continually being tricked by local elected officials. First, all should know that we are looking at systems, not people. I am not against Tiara Ross being on Columbus City Council. We knew going into the election that all seats on Council were from At Large votes. Thus Ross won the election despite losing in her district.
What I am not pleased with is that we went through all of that work to create City Council Districts but they are only Residence Requirements for the members. Why did we do all of that work? They were not clear about what they were doing at that time: the corrupted election system they were putting in place. This does need to be changed to more than a Residence Requirement and reflect the Community Votes going forward for all City Council Seats.
We were deceived again even as Mapfre Stadium was promised to The Linden Area in exchange for our work to get out the vote for the soccer stadium downtown. That was then blamed on no parking from the State of Ohio according to Mayor Ginther, but they had concerts there and now a Professional Football Team is coming in there. Tricked again.
I am tired of being deceived by city officials on both of these two issues and others. Elected officials -- especially our city council members need to be accountable to the people they represent."
Minister Kujenga Eliyah Ashe'
The Peace Ambassador to the United Nations, "The Trumpet Man"
Dear Mr. Klein:
The NAACP Legal Defense and Education 1 writes at the urging of Everyday People for Positive Change ("EDP"), concerning the City of Columbus' ("Columbus")
at-large method of electing its seven city council members, including those incumbents elected in this November's election, of which you are one. EDP, a ballot
issue committee, believes that this electoral method, under which no Black candidate has been elected to office in recent history without an initial appointment, including those incumbents elected in this November's elections [2017], weakens the voting strength of Columbus's Black community.
This organization considers this to be one of the most pressing issues facing the community and has advocated for a change to the electoral method for the city council...
... At the request of EDP, LDF is conducting a review of Columbus's at-large electoral method for members of its city council. We have substantial concerns that this electoral method may violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 52 U.S.C. § 10301(a) ("Section 2") and other federal and state laws, by denying voters of color in Columbus of the equal opportunity to elect their preferred candidates to this important local body.3 We write to provide the city council with this information so that this body can pursue an inclusive, fair course of action and avoid potentially costly and lengthy litigation that may be required to ensure compliance with Section 2 and other applicable laws...
...Section 2 prohibits voting standards, practices, or procedures, including at-large electoral methods, that are either have a racially discriminatory intent or have racially discriminatory results. One of the chief purposes of Section 2 is to prohibit minority vote dilution, which can occur when an at-large electoral system denies Black voters of the opportunity to participate equally in the political process and elect their preferred candidates because their votes are canceled
out by the white majority who vote as a bloc. Indeed, courts have found that other jurisdictions in Ohio have violated Section 2 by maintaining at-large voting. For example, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio found that an at-large electoral system for city council and school
board members in Euclid violated Section 2 because it diluted the Black voting strength in that city...
...In Thornburg v. Gingles, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that "special circumstances, such as the absence of an opponent and incumbency," do not diminish the need for systemic reform. Consistent with that recognition, courts have found that appointments of minority individuals to elected positions in an at-large voting system may be indicative of impermissible
vote dilution under Section 2.11 Indeed, Columbus has been reputed to have informally recognized a Black m occupied initially by James Roseboro and Jerry Hammond, for which, after Ben Espy resigned, Michael Coleman, Fred Ransier, Kevin Boyce, Troy Miller, and Shannon
Hardin all Black males, were subsequently appointed). In recognizing the history of the city council making mid-term appointments of Black men to that seat, Franklin County Democratic Party chairman Dennis White said: and it seems as if that has worked out...
...Moreover, the longstanding advocacy to save a significant portion of Poindexter Village, the first public housing community in Ohio, that has for generations existed in the heart of a historically Black Columbus neighborhood, also illuminates the cry for an alternative to at-large voting, such as district-based voting, for city council members. An author of a book about Poindexter Village, S. Yolanda Adams, reportedly proclaimed "this is exactly why so many of us for so long ha ve believed that Council Districts are important we get overlooked and our
voices are not heard.
That these and other such critical decisions are made in a system where Columbus' Black community members may not have an equal opportunity to elect their representatives of choice to the city council is alarming. Precisely because they have all too often operated as structural walls of exclusion and infringed on 'the right that is preservative of all rights,' at-large electoral systems in jurisdictions with significant populations of people of color, as in Columbus, have been struck down as violative of Section 2.
Fortunately, the city council is expressly empowered under Ohio law to move swiftly to advance an alternative method of election, such as the use of single-member districts, to ensure equal participation for all of Columbus' residents."
This is a picture of our petition circulators in one campaign bringing boxes of signed petitions to City Hall to be counted. Columbus' Black community has gathered nearly 90,000 petition signatures over 3 cycles of citizen-led attempts to get on the ballot. On two occasions we gathered enough signatures timely to force ballot issues, while one time we fell short. The people want change ... the politicians block us.
In 2016, we gathered over 42,000 petition signatures to force a vote, but were soundly defeated by a $1.1M campaign of city-coordinated lies and deception in opposition. The Columbus Dispatch noted in an editorial that campaign deceive, but theirs did so exceedingly.
Two years later we again gathered enough signatures for a ballot initiative that included true districts and campaign finance reform. The city council refused to put the issue on teh ballot, saying it violated the single subject rule they had just imposed for citizen-initiated ballot issues -- but not for council-initiated ballots issues. Single subject law comes from the state constitution adn courts have repeatedly ruled that single subject laws do not bar comprehensive legislation on a single general issue area, but bar disjointed and unrelated issues. We sued the city, but lost in a 4-5 decision, where the court said it was deferring to the city because it was a new city law and the city attorney is best positioned to interpret it. This is what happens when you are ruled by the "Epstein" class, instead of by the people.
Today, we are calling on city council to simply put this issue on the ballot without forcing Black Columbus back out into the streets to gather signatures. Our elections are corrupt, and everybody knows it. It is time for a true fix.
Our work attracted the attention of Rev. Al Sharpton, seen here with petition committee member Jon Beard. Rev. Sharpton, Executive Director of the National Action Network came to Columbus and said he stood ready to offer support the next time around. We can get national visibility for our efforts to get basic voting rights here in Columbus that other communities have had for 60 years.
Our support comes throughout the community. Here we have a young woman taking care of her daughter's future as she signs our petition. Working together, we build strong community and strong futures for the next generation.
While our work is designed primarily because of our love for Black community, our work benefits all and gains strong support across racial boundaries. This work is about building power for the people, and wrestling it away from the Epstein class and its paid off politicians.