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To continue to exist in a democracy, we must be our government’s own safeguards • Colorado Newsline

Umito
To continue to exist in a democracy, we must be our government’s own safeguards • Colorado Newsline

A government without safeguards. This is our reality in Ohio and Washington.

All of the constitutional checks and balances in our rapidly disappearing democratic republic have effectively disappeared in our state and federal government. There is no separation of powers as a safeguard against abuse of power. In Washington, DC, as in Columbus, the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government are part of the same empowered team.

The evidence, if any were needed, of the impending demise of our democracy in the Buckeye State and the United States is coming fast and furious. Ohio Republicans have played the long game to secure their political dominance through hand-picked districts and partisan elections of state Supreme Court justices. They succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Republican supermajorities. No constraints. No significant opposition.

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Ohio Democrats can only lament the radical right turn the legislature has taken into the MAGA abyss while their state party wanders in the wilderness with near uselessness. Statehouse Republicans have carte blanche to do the worst – and they have done it, right from the start of the lame duck session: a whole series of extreme and unavoidable laws that will serve no one except right-wingers on the rise. .

But politicians who design voter-proof districts to manipulate them to gain total control are accountable only to their team. So Republican lawmakers seeking to bolster their MAGA bona fides rushed to propose more unwarranted obstacles for voters to suppress more votes, rushed to inflict more abject cruelty on a tiny fraction of the relentlessly demonized population during the 2024 Republican campaigns, and pushed for more Christian nationalism. they demanded Bible breaks in the middle of public school days.

Lawmakers’ top priority upon returning from the holidays was not the health or well-being of Ohioans who are hungry and suffering and facing yet another rent hike, nor the desperate working parents seeking of quality, affordable child care, nor the state’s lowest-paid workers unable to afford the necessities. No. The urgent bill that Republicans needed to pass first and quickly to the governor’s desk was a bill banning trans students from using single-sex bathrooms — a hot-button issue for no one on Main Street, Ohio.

But by exploiting the fear of a small transgender community scoring favorably with the MAGA base and winning the election, Ohio Republicans had all the incentive they needed to prioritize a fabricated issue. pieces regarding toilet access (based on nothing) and embedding their shameful attack on vulnerable teenagers into an unrelated bill. rapid passage – with the blessing of the state’s largest and most anti-Christian religious right lobby.

A flurry of last-minute, Fox News-inspired nonsense will likely pass before the session ends, with most Ohioans unaware of it — until it’s too late. But if you’re still reading this, there is hope. Even with no safeguards or institutional checks and balances within state government to constrain the GOP’s out-of-control autocratic rule backed by an even more partisan State Supreme Court, you still have a power of action.

Even if Congress and the United States Supreme Court commit to enabling and expanding Donald Trump’s unchecked plenary powers, asserting that the criminal president-elect is essentially divorced from the Constitution, you still have a power to action.

Even with the Republican trio ruling the nation pledging allegiance to one man and not the law, giving a notoriously corrupt lawbreaker unilateral authority over every part of the federal government (which now operates independently of the White House), you have the power.

In the immediate aftermath of the 2024 presidential election, two-time Georgia gubernatorial candidate and Democratic leader Stacey Abrams spoke directly to those tempted to give up and tune out. For those who are discouraged, exhausted and, rightly, terrified, she had a message: the battle for decency and humanity (despite setbacks) is not in vain. Remember the progress – not just the pain.

But, Abrams advised.unlike before, it is not enough to simply resist the slide toward authoritarianism in the nation and in state autocracies that are feeling their oats with new voter suppression measures and stupid bathroom bans. We need to do more than organize and persist against racism, sexism and homophobia, because that would hurt all of us, she said. This time, we will have to insist.

“We must insist on having a government and leaders who respect us and our needs. And this isn’t just about the president and our federal government. I’m talking about the zoning boards that impose higher rents because they refuse to adapt, and the school board where your children or those of the neighbor are denied books and the truth…

“No more polite acceptance or making excuses for prejudice. We must demand better from ourselves and from our leaders. We must insist on fighting for our rights, even if we think we will lose. Because the record will show that we tried, that we sued and filed complaints… We have made a historical record of our efforts.

So, believe in your own power to make changes. November 5th happened. But so has a grassroots effort by hundreds of thousands of Ohioans to end the blatant gerrymandering that Republicans have maintained. For now. But, Abrams concludes, “we exist between elections, between these moments, between these evils.” We are responsible.

We are the safeguards. The final check on government of the people, by and for the people. But, and this is the key, only if we insist.

Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. The Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact editor David Dewitt with any questions: (email protected). Follow the Ohio Capital Journal on Facebook And X.

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