TOLEDO, OH (WTOL) - Filing day came and went this week for the May primary election.
Already around Toledo, some interesting races are shaping up for the fall, an election in which Ohio voters will choose the next Governor and a U.S. Senator.
On the Republican side of the ledger, no fewer than five candidates will run in May for the right to challenge Democrat Sherrod Brown who seeks his third six-year term in the U.S. Senate.
One of the front-runners currently serves in Washington. Jim Renacci represents Ohio's 16th district in the U.S. House of Representatives.
He was elected in 2010 after a long and successful career in business during which he owned some 60 businesses and employed some 3,000 people.
Renacci recently sat down with us on Leading Edge where we asked how he plans to clear a crowded Republican field in May.
We also asked Renacci if congress will get an infrastructure bill passed this year and who will be paying for that?
Ohio currently has 16 congressional districts.
Therefore, if some 56 per cent of Ohioans voted Republican at the time the congressional maps were most recently drawn, they should get roughly how many of those 16 seats?
If you said 12, you must be a huge fan of gerrymandering, because that is how many Republicans have controlled since those latest maps.
If you think any of that is legit, check out Marcy Kaptur's "snake on the lake" district stretching from Toledo to Cleveland and narrow enough to spit across at one point.
Many citizens said "enough" and a coalition called fair districts equals fair elections was born. Just this week, their hard work and pressure forged a compromise we will all see on the May ballot.
We sat down with Ann Fabiszak Payne and Lee McLaird, of the League of Women Voters, and discussed the work they do on an ongoing basis and had them inform us of efforts to erase gerrymandering from our electoral landscape.
