DEMOCRATIC REFORMS

  • Unicameralism: Eliminate the Ohio Senate and reduce the Ohio General Assembly to the Ohio House of Representative. The Senate is redundant and not meaningfully differentiated from the House, adding only bureaucracy and bloat rather than any meaningful check on majority rule. 
  • Expand the Legislature: While eliminating 33 Ohio Senators, we will expand the number of representatives from 99 to 225. Reducing districts from populations of 125,000 to 50,000 will make representatives more responsive to their constituents while reducing the cost of running for office in those districts making elections more competitive. 
    • Elite Overproduction: Populism is fake, ideologies are fake, politics is fake, no one really believes any of this bullsh*t. It’s all just different methods for elites to fight each other over a limited number of status positions (elected offices). They create partisan divides to try and leverage themselves a status position. America has grown more divided because we produce a lot more lawyers these days but the number of elected offices has barely grown over the last century. Politicians are terrorists holding the country hostage. The solution is simple: give the terrorists what they want! Drastically expand the number of elected positions in the country (while substantially reducing the power of those elected positions). 
  • Repeal Term Limits: Terms limits are often advanced as sensible reform to reduce the power of incumbency and the entrenchment of politicians. Anyone who has paid attention in Ohio over the last decade will see how absolutely destructive term limits have been to the state. It demolished institutional knowledge and rather than entrenching politicians it has entrenched the political machines. Legislative term limits are an undemocratic check on the power of voters that empowers Party over people. Executive terms limits should remain. 
  • Longer Terms: short terms force politicians to constantly be running for re-election meaning instead of good governance they’re focused on making showy appeals to their base (their stupid, stupid, self-interested base) which generally means bad things for the rest of us. We will extend the terms of state representatives to 6 years. But to keep the legislature as a whole responsive to the will of voters, one-third of the representatives will be up for election every 2 years. 
  • At Large Representatives: Of our 225 members House of Representatives, 15 will be elected At Large as in by voters of the entire state of Ohio. Five will be up for election every two years. 
  • Ranked Choice or Approval Voting: Our current “First Past the Post” voting system leads to candidates being elected without a majority of voters actually wanting them. This tends to be undemocratic and creates a partisan and negative political environment. We want a positive political environment (love each other). Alternative voting systems more likely to result in a broadly acceptable candidate being elected are Ranked Choice Voting and Approval Voting. 
    • Approval Voting is the better, more efficient system less open to gaming. In Approval Voting, voters check the box next to all the candidates they want to. The candidate with the most votes (most approval) wins. 
    • Ranked Choice Voting involves voters ranking candidates (1st, 2nd, 3rd…nth) and the candidates with the least 1st choice support being eliminated and their votes reallocated to the 2nd choice of those voters and so on until a candidate reaches a majority. This system is fine. If the most broadly acceptable candidate gets the least 1st choice support they’d still be eliminated and that’s unfortunate. And if there are many candidates it makes ballots complicated and tough to print but digital ballots should handle that fine. 
    • The Dark Horse administration will advance Approval Voting but finds Ranked Choice Voting acceptable. 
  • Lower maximum campaign contributions in Ohio elections from $13,704.41 to $2,500.00. 
  • Democracy Dollars: A digital voucher for $100.00 in campaign contributions awarded to all Ohio voters every two years. The $100.00 can be divided as needed. The voucher can be used for any candidates for office in Ohio. Gives greater power to all voters and candidates will benefit from appealing to many voters and not just rich ones. 
  • Eliminate self-funding: Candidates will not be able to contribute any more to their campaigns than the maximum individual donation. Rich people should not be able to buy themselves an office. 
  • Same Day Voter Registration: Voters should be able to register to vote on election day. It’s a bureaucratic formality. 
  • Candidate Voter Guide: Provide a candidate guide to all voters which will contain a character limited summary from every candidate so that voters (who rarely bother to research things because they’re rational and know it doesn’t actually matter how they vote) can learn a little about who they’re voting for. 
  • Independent Redistricting: Ohio’s redistricting saga was an extremely predictable mess. The idea that you could eliminate gerrymandering while leaving any redistricting power in the hands of elected partisans was always farcical. Power over Ohio’s redistricting should be placed entirely in the hands of an independent commission.