Group wants major changes in politics

[Algorem]

http://www.cleveland.com/newsflash/cleveland/index.ssf?/base/news-18/1121981396171130.xml&storylist=cleveland

7/21/2005, 6:25 p.m. ET
By JOHN McCARTHY
The Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — ...Reform Ohio Now, a coalition of unions, civic groups and Democratic-leaning organizations, wants a limit on campaign donations, a plan to take politics out of congressional and legislative redistricting and the creation of a state board to oversee elections.

The group has collected 350,000 signatures for each of the three initiatives and hopes to gather 100,000 more before the Aug. 10 deadline for putting statewide issues on the ballot, the group's Scarlett Bouder said. The group needs 322,899 valid signatures of registered Ohio voters, or 10 percent of the total vote in the 2002 election for governor...

The three amendments may not, and should not, get to the ballot, said Jason Mauk, political director of the Ohio Republican Party...

Mauk blames Democrats' failure to field competitive candidates for Republican domination in the last 14 years, not partisanship in the election process. The GOP has held the governor's office since 1991 and all nonjudicial statewide offices since 1995...

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

1. Ohio is ripe for reform with current events

we shall see what happens

[Rainscents]

2. This is only way election can get changed! Republicans will do

nothing as they have their die-bold machines to rig.

[Kolesar]

3. filler