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Ohio should have four senators
(by Dave Lange - October 17, 2012)
Ohio should have four senators
This being a national election year, it’s a good time to ask why North and South Dakota are entitled to four United States senators, while Northern and Southern Ohio only get two, despite having eight times as many people. Not only that, but the two Dakotas have much more in common with each other than do the two halves of Ohio.
Sure, six states have larger populations than Ohio, and maybe they have their internal differences as well. But that’s their problem.
Our problem is that Southern Ohio, with its capital in Columbus, takes so much from Northern Ohio, which should have its capital in Cleveland, and gives so little in return. Columbus wouldn’t be much of a city at all, were it not for so many overpaid bureaucrats and that gigantic, tax-subsidized state university.
One recent example was the decision by the governor from Columbus to delay the long-planned and promised Inner Belt bridge project in downtown Cleveland while prioritizing projects in Cincinnati and Dayton.
The answer is simple. Divide the state into North Ohio and South Ohio. North Ohio would consist of 40 counties ranging from the eight along the Lake Erie shore and two others along the Michigan border to Jefferson County along the Ohio River in the east to Van Wert County on the Indiana border. South Ohio would consist of the remaining 48 counties.
Both new states would have nearly 5.8 million people, ranking them 18th and 19th among the 51 states, just below Missouri and above Maryland. Counting the Lake Erie surface, both new states would cover more than 22,000 square miles, ranking them 41st and 42nd, just below neighboring West Virginia but larger than Maryland, New Jersey and six other states.
Best of all, each of the two new states would get its own two senators, just like the two Dakotas and all the others, including many with smaller populations than Cuyahoga County.
North Ohio would include the major cities of Cleveland, Toledo, Akron, Youngstown and Canton. South Ohio would have Columbus, Cincinnati and Dayton. Both would elect their own governors and legislatures.
In addition to two U.S. senators, each would elect eight members to the U.S. House of Representatives. North Ohio no longer would have to put up with discombobulated congressional districts gerrymandered to neutralize urban representation in Congress. Instead of Cuyahoga County being chopped up into four incoherent jigsaw pieces combined with 13 other counties as far as 100 miles away, it could have one entire district to itself plus an eastern section neatly combined with Geauga and Lake counties and a southern section combined just as neatly with Summit County.
North Ohio could keep its Ohio Turnpike and stop the harebrained scheme of selling it off to a private operator with nearly half of the proceeds going to South Ohio, which doesn’t have any toll roads of its own.
Of the 335 permits issued by the state so far for those booming horizontal gas and oil wells, 278 are in North Ohio. Of the wells already drilled, 102 are in North Ohio, and just 16 are in South Ohio. Why redistribute the wealth?
North Ohio could protect its Great Lake from southern predators, and South Ohio could keep its big river, except that it happens to be in West Virginia and Kentucky.
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