Badin vs. Fredericktown
Miamisburg graduation 2012
Valley View vs. Greenville
Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.
Scott Elliott is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He writes about education, city and suburban issues, politics, business, workforce and consumer issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2010 > August > 05
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Editorial: Legislature’s flop on districting just ludicrous
The arguments that leading Ohio legislators make for continuing to allow one-party domination of the drawing of legislative districts are striking.
Take Senate Democratic leader Capri Cafaro, of Hubbard, speaking after hopes died this week for a bipartisan, House-Senate compromise reform measure.
“The concern of our caucus,” she said, “was not the content of the plan, but rather the concept of putting something into the constitution that hasn’t been tried in another state.”
In fact, though, the only way to change the map-drawing process is through the constitution. So Sen. Cafaro is saying Ohio should not be a national leader.
And, anyway, the compromise that she finally rejected did not have the truly bold, innovative idea that the (Democratic) House had passed. Its fundamental measure held simply that no future map may be adopted without bipartisan support.
The compromise did also instruct the map-drawers to try to create many districts that might be won either political party; and, given that some other districts must inevitably be dominated by one party, the map should have roughly equal numbers of Republican and Democratic districts, reflecting the political nature of the state.
That’s not much to be afraid of.
Or take the criticism by Sen. Bill Seitz, R-Cincinnati. For technical reasons, the compromise also included language that would give the mapmakers more leeway to break up townships and counties than cities. This was a compromise Sen. Husted had to agree to because Democratic techies had concluded that competitiveness and statewide balance between Republican and Democratic districts could not be achieved otherwise.
Sen. Seitz said, “I think this would work mischief.”
State Sen. Tim Grendell, R-Chesterland, said that the compromise could hurt rural Republicans.
Mischief? Any mischief in the context of a system that requires bipartisan votes and specific nonpartisan criteria would be tiny compared to mischief under the current system, which will now be in place for another decade. Now, the party that has two of three offices — governor, state auditor and secretary of state — is simply in charge. “Mischief” does not begin to cover what it can do.
The failure of reform is absurd, like something out of Alice in Wonderland. Support for reform came mainly from the House Democrats and Senate Republicans. What possible sense does that make?
Sen. Fred Strahorn, D-Dayton, expressed only the vaguest concerns about the compromise measure, saying he hadn’t quite focused on it. He said earlier versions worried him because of the nature of the tie-breaking mechanism, if maps couldn’t be agreed upon (something that the compromisers addressed).
The truth is unavoidable: The Senate Democrats associated reform with Sen. Husted and had no interest in helping his campaign for secretary of state by allowing him to claim an achievement. They provided not a single vote at any stage, though several expressed support for the general idea of reform.
And yet there’s blame to go around. The House Democrats who pushed reform did so belatedly, resulting in a special legislative session being required.
Even the most enthusiastic supporters deserve blame for not working on the Senate Democrats, whose numbers are so small (12 out of the 33 members), they frequently get ignored. But when a super-majority is necessary, as in this case, they can be crucial. Throughout this fight, they seemed to be on an island all to themselves.
The trip toward passage was always sharply uphill. Legislators were being asked to change rules that had worked for them, as individuals. Enthusiasm was always limited to a few, as was understanding of the issue.
The ending was sad.
But the issue has achieved higher visibility than ever. The next redistricting commission will include the next secretary of state. Both candidates — Sen. Husted and Maryellen O’Shaughnessy, the Democratic — are committed to reform. They can behave in that spirit on the commission, rather than as partisans, the way all other members have in past decades.
That could change things. But, still, the path is sharply uphill.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Martin Gottlieb, Ohio government, Ohio politics
Editorial: Counseling can get women killed
Jeff Bedinger is a tragic reminder that couples counseling isn’t right for everybody.
If you can believe what Mr. Bedinger told police after he was apprehended for allegedly killing his 22-year-old stepson, it was hours before at a counselor’s office that he realized that his wife, Kim, was not going to reconcile with him. Faced with the fact that she was leaving him — and that he couldn’t stop her — he got a gun and killed Brandon Haskins because he wanted his wife “to hurt the way I’m hurting.”
Mrs. Bedinger told police that her husband had threatened to shoot her on four prior occasions.
Mr. Bedinger will have his day in court, but the circumstances line up perfectly with classic lethal domestic violence cases. Those signs are important for counselors, clergy, divorce lawyers, police, relatives and friends to know if they know, or suspect, someone is being abused.
Going to counseling together in that situation is dangerous. If the victim — invariably the woman — is honest about why she wants out of the relationship or what has to change, telling an outsider can get her (or someone close to her) hurt or killed. She’s publicly exposing her abuser if she explains the problem, or if she doesn’t, there’s no chance of getting to the heart of her fear or unhappiness.
(It’s not just abuse victims themselves who are endangered when the truth comes out. Researchers are finding that batterers often target stepchildren in the home, too.)
Well-meaning people — including educated professionals — often provide or recommend counseling for a couple whose marriage is disintegrating. With rational people, the therapy can be helpful. But before couples counseling is tried, it’s important to know if violence is occurring or threatened. If abuse is going on, there’s a victim who needs help, not someone who needs to understand her partner’s needs or anger.
Seeing this and taking a side is hard for people who instinctively believe there are two sides to every disagreement. And it can be especially hard for clergy if they feel their loyalty is to both people because both are active in their faith. Still, there is only one right thing to do.
Invariably, at least some outsiders are stunned when domestic violence happens. They can’t imagine someone they know, and maybe like, hurting or killing another person; they often never saw “that side” of him.
But at the heart of every abuser’s behavior is his profound need to be in control, and when that power is threatened or taken away, irrationality can set in and the violent behavior ratchets up. The smart thing to do is to never underestimate a person who has been violent in the past or who is threatening to hurt a partner. They too often mean what they say.
In Montgomery County, judges, police, prosecutors and social workers come together periodically to review the circumstances in domestic violence cases, with the goal of discovering how the death could have been prevented.
The Montgomery County Domestic Violence Review Committee doesn’t look at cases where the appeals are pending or where someone is acquitted or never was charged, so not every death is dissected. But of 25 cases in the last decade or so where a male murdered a female partner, 18 occurred at the time the woman was trying to leave. This percentage mirrors the national rate, where 75 percent of such deaths occur when a woman tells her abuser she wants out.
Leaving a batterer is the most dangerous time in that couple’s relationship, and anyone contemplating that needs to do so from a safe place where she and those around her can be protected.
No one can predict when an abuser is going to go off, but what experience shows is that people who punch and hurt the people they love can also kill them.
Permalink | Comments (21) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Ellen Belcher, Law Enforcement and Public Safety
