The Columbus Metropolitan Club (CMC) Wednesday continued its ongoing “Democracy in Crisis” series with a discussion on what the next decade of politics could bring in Ohio and across the country.

Moderator Karen Kasler of the Statehouse News Bureau opened the “Democracy 2033” event by noting the dramatic shifts the country has seen in the last 10 years. The major headlines of 2013, for instance, included the imperfect roll out of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or ObamaCare, the U.S. Senate’s block of gun control legislation following the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, a 16-day federal government shutdown over budget negotiations, and the U.S. Supreme Court decision to strike down major provisions in the Voting Rights Act and the Defense of Marriage Act. At the time, then New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was considered a front runner for Republican presidential nominee.

Also in 2013, country singer Trace Adkins won the All-Star season of ‘Celebrity Apprentice,’ hosted by Donald Trump.

Most of the panelists’ conversation on Ohio-specific politics focused on public corruption and the state’s more recent redistricting saga.

As a person working to reform the redistricting process, Common Cause Ohio Executive Director Catherine Turcer said she was used to getting her “butt kicked” but that she “needed therapy” after the most recent redistricting fight.

It “felt like this long constitutional crisis where our elected officials were not actually listening to the Ohio Supreme Court and doing the right thing by the voters … and it filled me with incredible rage,” she said.

Turcer reflected on 2012, when Issue 2, an initiated constitutional amendment that would have created a citizen-led redistricting commission, failed resoundingly.

“There have been a lot of times I've gotten my butt kicked, and it was solidly kicked in 2012,” she said.

Turcer said 2013 was a year to “regroup” and she thinks 2023 will be the same in this respect.

While some in Ohio have suggested putting forward another constitutional amendment initiative to create an independent redistricting commission, including former Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, other panelists were skeptical this would have the desired effect.

Lawmakers were able to ignore the Ohio Supreme Court while O’Connor was on it, Herb Asher, professor emeritus of political science at Ohio State University, noted. So what does that say about the prospect of court rulings without her, he asked.

“We finally did pass [constitutional amendments] and then the redistricting commission, dominated by the GOP, basically ignored the Ohio Supreme Court, so when I hear people now say, ‘let's go back to the ballot again and pass a stronger constitutional amendment,” I'm saying well, wait a second. What guarantees are there that the current Supreme Court without Maureen O'Connor will do any better? I don't think there're any guarantees whatsoever, and the likelihood is just the opposite, which is depressing,” Asher said.

Turcer acknowledged the enormous task of passing constitutional amendments but said “what we can't do is give up on participating in meaningful elections. What we can't do is actually give up on redistricting.”

Turcer commented on 134-HJR6 (Stewart), the Republican effort to raise the bar for passage of constitutional amendments to at least 60 percent of the vote. That measure was submitted for reintroduction Wednesday. (See separate story, this issue.)

To “think that if you could get 59 percent of the vote and you would lose. It just would create a real obstacle for us … and when you think about it, do we really want to end majority voting? Is that what we want? It makes no sense to me,” she said.

Turcer also discussed the lack of transparency in political ads, saying innocuous nonprofit names funding political candidates conceal which corporations are influencing which candidates and make it hard for citizens to “follow the money.”

She noted, for example, “Generation Now,” the “dark money” nonprofit group that pleaded guilty in the 133-HB6 federal corruption scandal involving former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, whose federal trial is set to begin later this month.

Turcer connected the issues with redistricting to public corruption and transparency issues in the state, saying lawmakers are “drunk on power.”

Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a nonpartisan political analysis newsletter run by the University of Virginia Center for Politics, also commented on the 133-HB6 case. After following several public corruption cases around the country, Kondik said it seems to have become “harder and harder” to convict public officials.

“Even if you think that there's a public official that you think you've got dead to rights on some sort of corruption problem, don't believe that conviction is going to happen until it actually happens,” he said.

Looking ahead to what 2033 might hold, the panelists were not optimistic the country would find a unifying force that could reduce partisanship.

Asher commented that there are “now so many forces at work out there that are pushing us apart.” The electoral system “rewards the wrong things,” he said, and he called Americans’ appreciation of “civics education, democracy, the norms, the institutions of the country … very shallow.”

Kondik called the results of the 2022 midterms “heartening.” One of the main questions after the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Kondik said, was on whether candidates who backed former President Donald Trump’s false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election would be punished by voters. “The answer in many instances was yes.”

Asher, however, suggested America is still in a turbulent and dangerous political era. While Trump-backed U.S. Senate candidates lost midterm races in several other states, Asher called now-U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance’s victory in Ohio “Donald’s Trump’s trophy.” He also noted that Republican candidate Herschel Walker lost with 49 percent of the vote in Georgia – “I don't view that as necessarily a really happy sign.”

Asher also worried about the rise of “ideological” media and how the country’s economic future could affect its politics. As many economists predict the U.S. may be heading for a recession, Asher suggested this could add to the “sense that things are falling apart” and make Americans more “susceptible” to “anti-democratic” appeals.