Editorial Roundup: Ohio | | elpasoinc.com

Cleveland Plain Dealer. March 2, 2022.

Editorial: In Ohio redistricting battle, is quest for the ‘perfect’ muscling out the ‘good’?

An epic constitutional battle over new state legislative maps in Ohio is being fought on three fronts — among Statehouse partisans, within the Ohio Supreme Court, and between the court and legislative leaders. A breakdown on any of those lanes could leave the state’s 2022 primary election in disarray and lead to more gridlock, an escalating crisis, and possible intervention of the federal courts.

Given those dire possibilities, many may consider it a “best case” if the most recently approved Ohio Redistricting Commission state legislative maps survive Ohio Supreme Court review. Which they might, since they prospectively hit the 54%-46% GOP-Democratic split the high court majority previously said reflected recent statewide vote totals as a constitutional bar.

Democrats gripe the maps are cooked since the GOP crafted a lot of razor-thin Democratic districts and no cliff-hanging GOP districts. Meanwhile, this third set of maps also saw the commission’s five-member Republican majority splinter for the first time, with Ohio Auditor Keith Faber joining the commission’s two Democrats in voting “no,” albeit in part because he thought the maps favored Democrats.

But are disputed maps that will only last four years really the “best case?”

With the two sides, in theory, closer together with this third set of maps, what will it take to break through the standoff to find a true bipartisan compromise that could allow ten-year maps to be approved?

It requires two votes from each party on the commission to get to bipartisanship under Ohio’s voter-adopted redistricting rules, thus allowing the maps to last the full decade to the next Census. Without bipartisan buy-in, once this battle ends with agreed (or imposed) maps, Ohio politicians will be back at war in four short years. Do we really want that?

There is a better way to do this, to reach bipartisanship on the maps, which is what the voters wanted in the first place when they overwhelmingly reformed the process.

Commission Republicans could stop freezing Democrats out of deliberations over map contours. And Statehouse Democrats could consider that what is good for the fiercely partisan Faber may be bad for them — and that more may be gained from a map for ten years than a map-drawing process overseen by a potentially more partisan Supreme Court majority four years hence.

For both sides, it’s a shopworn but apt maxim that people should not let what’s perceived as the perfect become enemy of what’s good – or good enough.

Could the current maps — over which the sides are now arguing before the state Supreme Court — be made good enough for two Democrats and two Republicans? Could a good-faith revisiting of the debate by the Redistricting Commission and all seven commissioners achieve breakthrough changes before the matter is fully ripe for a high court decision?

Although the third set of maps ostensibly tracks the Supreme Court’s requirements, the Redistricting Commission’s Democrats — state Sen. Vernon Sykes, of Akron, and House Minority Leader Allison Russo, of Upper Arlington — voted “no,” apparently because, cleveland.com’s Andrew J. Tobias reported, “19 of the Democratic-leaning House districts, and seven of the Democratic-leaning Senate districts, favor Democrats by 3 percentage points or less … (while) none of the Republican-leaning districts (is) that close.” And the Supreme Court had based its rejection of plans one and two in part because of districts that only favored Democrats by 1 percentage point.

It appears that partisans on the commission are still rolling the dice — Republicans, that they’ve hit the sweet spot with their latest maps, and Democrats, that the Supreme Court will reject plan three, and that any plan four – regardless of who draws it – would offer Democrats better districts.

Yet the commission’s now-splintered GOP front includes two other statewide elected officials — Gov. Mike DeWine and Secretary of State Frank LaRose — who should in theory want to fulfill the voters’ legitimate expectation of a good-faith effort to reach compromise.

No one can foresee what the Supreme Court’s makeup will be in four years. And Republican Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, who joined Democratic justices in rejecting plans one and two, is retiring Dec. 31.

So: The perfect – or the good? Both sides may want to reconsider their positions at this 11th hour, to end the gridlock, the lawsuits, the delays — and to work together, finally, to come to bipartisan agreement on a set of maps. It would be about time. And it’s the right thing to do.

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Columbus Dispatch. March 6, 2022.

Editorial: ‘It was that bad.’ 2 years later, is COVID beaten enough to ditch masks?

“The city of Columbus on the recommendation of Columbus Public Health is expected to lift its indoor mask mandate a day after The Arnold, “the largest multi-sport event in the world,” wraps up today.”

It’s been two years, but surely you remember March of 2020 well.

You may even recall shaking your head in disbelief on the 5th of the month when The Arnold Sports Festival became Ohio’s first major event forced to ban most spectators and partly cancel as fears of coronavirus spread.

Here we are nearly two years after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020.

Perhaps by chance, on the recommendation of Columbus Public Health, the city of Columbus is expected to lift its indoor mask mandate a day after The Arnold, “the largest multi-sport event in the world,” wraps up today.

The move follows the announcement of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s new COVID-19 guideline allowing most Americans to go maskless indoors.

The 2020 Arnold was just the start of a nightmare that upended livelihoods and left millions without family members.

The setback, heartbreak and disappointment that began two years ago once seemed out the realm of possibility.

It really couldn’t be all that bad.

Surely government officials — including Gov. Mike DeWine, Columbus Mayor Andrew J. Ginther and Dr. Amy Acton, then the director of the Ohio Department of Health — were being too caution, going overboard.

It was that bad and the hospitalizations and deaths that followed show they didn’t go overboard.

Despite a backlash that grew over time and at points verged on violence, officials followed the science.

— DeWine declared a state of emergency March 9, 2020 after three people in Ohio tested positive for the virus.

— When a fifth case was reported just three days later, DeWine and Acton ordered schools to close, banned nursing homes and state psychiatric hospitals from having visitors and prohibited gatherings of more than 100 people.

— In the days that followed, restaurants were ordered closed to dine-in customers. Bars, movie theaters, indoor water parks, indoor trampoline parks, barbershops, tattoo parlors, beauty shops, bowling alleys, fitness centers, gyms and recreation centers were ordered to close.

— Families and friends were told not to gather with those who did not share their homes.

— Non-essential businesses were ordered to shut and stay-at-home orders were issued.

— Toilet paper, disinfecting wipes and hand sanitizer became must-hoard items. Before the year ended, self-quarantine, social distance, herd immunity, PPE, flattening the curve and ‘Wine with DeWine’ became common utterances.

Have we reached the endemic?

A new variant could come along to set us back again, but many experts expect COVID-19 is entering an endemic phase. According to Yonatan Grad, Harvard University associate professor of immunology and infectious disease,s that would not means the virus has vanished, but that enough people have gained immunity from vaccination or natural infection.

At a press conference, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC’s director, cited the nation’s arsenal of tools to fight COVID-19 as the reason for the new guidance. They include COVID-19 vaccinations and boosters, broader testing, higher quality masks, access to new treatments and improved ventilation equipment.

“Over 200 million people have received a primary vaccine series and nearly 100 million have been boosted and millions more have had prior disease. With widespread population immunity, the overall risk of severe disease is now generally lower,” she said. “Now, as the virus continues to circulate in our communities, we must focus our metrics beyond just cases in the community and direct our efforts toward protecting people at high risk for severe illness and preventing COVID-19 from overwhelming our hospitals and our healthcare systems.”

Masks were recommended for people living in areas of substantial…