VOICES: Rogue Secretary of State?

In 2020 and 2021, Frank LaRose, Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State, helped pass partisan gerrymandering, letting candidates pick voters and ignoring orders of the Ohio Supreme Court that the gerrymandering of these congressional and legislative districts was unconstitutional. He tried to purge 235,000 voters from the rolls until challenged because 20% of these victims were active voters. LaRose also supported efforts to deny Ohio voters from having the right to amend their state constitution by ballot initiative; and after being thrashed in that fight actively worked against passage of the Amendment guaranteeing the right of women to make reproductive choices. He confessed to “collaborating with three prominent anti-abortion groups to alter the ballot language on the Nov. 7 referendum in order to defeat it.”

Let us play this out in the actual setting. Trying to prove his bona fides (he lost by a wide margin his last electoral attempt and needs to appear more radical), he finds that violating the halls of Congress, threatening the Vice-President with death because of the discharge of his Constitutional duties, assaulting police officers with flag polls, macing them, beating them with fists and ball bats, screaming obscenities and causing the deaths of many officers is not an insurrection. Instead, he talks about state legislators representing their constituencies. Mr. LaRose and his anti-democratic actions pose a bigger threat to the United States and our security than Ohio State Rep. Munira Yasin Abdullahi. No, Mr. LaRose, her vote does not pose encouragement to America’s declared enemy. Republican failure to support Israel and Ukraine with aid packages in the face of actual attacks by our sworn enemies does, just as Republican failure to vote on the immigration bill put forward by the Republican Senator from Oklahoma. You do not need Black’s Law Dictionary; you can watch the tapes.

The 14th Amendment is not an “arcane” provision of the Constitution. In fact, it was written largely by men from Ohio who sought to stop another Civil War. They were trying to stop the lawlessness that went on in the South after the Civil War by keeping “redeemers” out of office who beat, lynched, and terrorized Black Americans and eventually were successful in making their terrorism lawful and imposing segregation.

Ohio Republicans have gerrymandered opposition from the ballot. They imposed restrictions on voting by reducing drop boxes, making it harder for veterans to vote, and backed the big lie that Joe Biden is not President and that the election system is corrupt and broken. The election system is not broken. Not one court found election irregularities.

Speak up. Register to vote and vote for democracy, not venality.

David Madden is a veteran, retired trial lawyer and author of The Constitution and American Racism.