Deep blue cities within red states have always been an interesting construct to me. They have a place as an oasis of sorts and have different politicians and political machines than their blue state counterparts. Notably, their top candidates don’t have any higher office to go to, so it’s a never-ending game of controlling the same few seats and maybe waiting around for a Congressional seat to open. This isn’t inherently bad but can lead to the kind of surface level corruption that always seems to plague politicians.
Nowhere is this more evident than Ohio. Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland all have powerful local machines that have never-ending controversy. In Columbus, of the last 37 city council members over 30 were first appointed rather than elected. Make no mistake, this is intentional. If you’re in the machine and play ball, you too can earn an appointment to city council to make your re-election a piece of cake. If you’re leaving council, perhaps for an appointment to a county or judicial position, you just have to step aside a little early as a courtesy and make way.
That isn’t enough rigging for them. Take the new (circa 2023) ward system for electing Columbus City Council. This seems like a no-brainer, lots of cities have wards and each ward elects a member who can, ideally, speak to hyper-local issues and better represent where they live. In a big city, like Columbus, this is essential. There are lots of different parts of the cities with different needs and expecting a councilman to represent the whole city is asking for too much. Chicago, obviously much bigger, but still a large-Midwestern city, has 50 Alderman for 50 wards. Each of those Alderman are voted on solely by their ward and represent their ward. This makes sense.
Columbus, in sharp contrast, went a different route. Councilmembers have to live in the ward they run in, but rather than just the ward voting the entire city gets to vote on each ward. This poses the logical question of why you should be voting on someone else’s representative. Whatever the answer people may tell you, it’s to ensure that the party machine stays in charge of the city. It is much easier to run a renegade campaign in one of the nine wards then it is to run against the party in the entire city. The Franklin County Democratic Party’s endorsement, and their holy grail the Sample Ballot, have far more sway combined city wide.
This of course isn’t new, but in the context of how the party machines control all of city politics I think it’s vitally important to understand. There is no dissent when the party controls your destiny, because why would you want your political career to end.
All of this leads up to the much-publicized Jesse Vogel v. Tiara Ross City Council Ward 7 race. The race is compelling, Ross is the party choice and Vogel is a progressive outsider.
Just read through his site and you can get the sense that Vogel cares deeply about Columbus and wants it to be better. Perhaps, in a city of one-party control, the only thing standing in the way of some of these much needed reforms is the Franklin County Democratic Party machine.
Tremendous reporting from The Rooster (Editor’s Note: I am paid in the low 7 figures for my work on their staff) showed that Ross racked up thousands of dollars in parking fines, drove on a suspended license, and moved to the ward mere days before the election registration deadline.
Despite all of that, prior to a face-off in a primary (where 2 of the 3 candidates, all Democrats, would advance) all 9 incumbent members of city council endorsed Ross. It’s hard to have a thriving democracy when the party is more than willing, and more than eager, to try to tilt the scales.
For all intents and purposes they failed miserably too, Ross barely eeked out a victory with a 41-39 advantage in the city-wide primary. When you’re endorsed by every incumbent, it is astounding to not achieve a majority in a primary. It’s even more shocking to barely achieve a plurality.
That two-point victory was enough to sway the Franklin County Democratic Party endorsement for Ross, with it being the stated reason behind it. This is ridiculous, but they would’ve found a way to endorse their preferred candidate no matter what. Another, more compelling component, is that Ross actually lost Ward 7 to Vogel. Vogel won the ward in question, the ward that they’re of course running to represent, 49-31. For an outsider, with no machine backing, that is a tremendous result and clearly shows the will of the voters in the actual ward. It didn’t matter to the Franklin County Democratic Party Central Committee.
During the endorsement meeting, which ended in a 106-48 vote for the endorsement of Ross, State Rep. Dontavious Jarrells (infamous for being one of the worst bosses in the statehouse) had one of the most bizarre endorsement reasons I’ve ever heard, from WOSU,
State Rep. Dontavious Jarrells countered what Duffy said, arguing Ross’s driving record would be a positive to low income voters who may also have driven on a suspended license, breaking the law. “And who not better than someone who comes from the same community that is going to inspire them to believe that they can be a Tiara Ross,” Jarrells said. “With driver’s license issues, with some issues of debt, with the issues of navigating family trauma. And so don’t sit here and be high and mighty in this Democratic Party, because reality wise, the most of these things and the least of these things are going to come from all of us.”
Driving on a suspended license and racking up over $3,000 in parking tickets is not something to aspire to. It is not going to be positive to anyone, you do not want to see yourself in someone who has racked up that much in fines of any sort. It is a ridiculous notion to say, demeaning to low-income people, and quite frankly hilarious.
Sure, have it both ways. This is the exact same logic that was floating in politics with, “Trump as a felon will actually help him with felons votes because they see themself in him.” It’s ridiculous logic and not something that anyone remotely serious thinks. But the party has to have a reason, because you can’t just blindly support someone, you need some blind reasons behind your blind support.
Again, none of this is breaking news, but I think it’s helpful to be reminded of the scale of the problem a month before the election. Hell, it was even worse in the Columbus City School Board Race, where the party endorsed candidates before the primary. Endorsing people like Real Estate Developer Patrick Katzenmeyer (*this only makes sense if you look up the name of his father-in-law) over really anyone, but especially my friend Mounir Lynch, was absolutely nuts.
There are no repercussions though, and there can’t be in this system, because as long as the party decides they think that will be enough. Their entire syystem is predicated on their belief that people will look down at their sample ballot, punch the circles for whoever the party says, and go home.
I’d like to prove them wrong. Columbus has a chance to fix that a tiny bit next month, by voting for Vogel, voting for Lynch, and not just rolling over. I sure hope enough people take it.
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