Jane Mayer on Ohios Lurch to the Right
Last month, the story of a 10-year-old rape victim captured national headlines. The young girl was forced to travel out of state because of Ohio\u2019s draconian abortion ban with no exceptions for rape or incest, which would have been nearly unthinkable until very recently. Jane Mayer took a deep dive into statehouse politics to learn how a longtime swing state\u2014Ohio voted twice for President Barack Obama\u2014ended up legislating like a radically conservative one. Its laws, she says, are increasingly out of step with the state\u2019s voters, and this is owing to a sweeping Republican effort at gerrymandering. While familiar, gerrymandering \u201chas become much more of a dark art,\u201d Mayer tells David Remnick, \u201cthanks to computers and digital mapping. They have figured out ways now to do it that are so extreme, you can create districts [in which the incumbent] cannot be knocked out by someone from another party.\u201d Mayer also speaks with David Pepper, an Ohio politician and the author of \u201cLaboratories of Autocracy,\u201d who explains how a district is firmly controlled by one party, the representative is driven by the primary process inexorably toward extremism, until you have \u201ca complete meltdown of democracy.\u201d