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October 16, 2024 11 mins
Auditor Keith Faber on Issue 1
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Joining the party now is State Auditor Keith Faber. And Keith,
I'm sure you're saying to yourself, what did I walk
into this studio?

Speaker 2 (00:08):
I love it A good time, I love it.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
I love it also, you know the biggest thing first
of all, take me through what your day has consisted of,
if you will, if you would like to talk about, well,
a big.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
Party today was having a forum with Maureen O'Connor, chief
Justice or former chief Justice, and some other folks to
talk about Issue one. Now they're certainly all from the
pro Issue one side, and we had a chance to
rebut some of their arguments. But that was a big
part of the day. But you know, a stay auditor.
I always tell people my job is not auditing individuals,

(00:41):
businesses or collecting taxes. I have nothing to do with taxes,
even real estate taxes, isn't us.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
My job is simple.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
I'm your watchdog on people who spend government money, and
I catch people lying, stealing and cheating with government money
and put them in prison.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
There it is absolutely and so I was talking a lot.

Speaker 4 (00:57):
On a federal level for us. Please we would really
appreciate that.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
You know what this is the conversation I had with
the Trump team and President Trump's folks. They said, what
he's proposing for Elon Musk is exactly what state auditors
offices do. I do performance audits on government to figure
out how to make government work better, faster, cheaper. That's
what he's proposing at the federal level. And I said,
if you're going to do this and give Elon this power,
it's great, we'll help you, but you've got to give

(01:21):
him the power when they find something that's wrong to
chop off heads, because if not, they'll issue wonderful reports
to try and make the federal government leaner, meaner, and
more efficient, and then they'll just use them as doorstops.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Okay, that's the problem.

Speaker 5 (01:36):
It's almost impossible to get rid of a federal employee.
It is so when they talk about the job sector growing,
it's all federal and government is hard, disgusting.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
No, we're upside down as a country.

Speaker 4 (01:49):
No, it is as hard to get rid of a
federal bureaucrat employee as it is to get rid of
a tenured professor in college. Is that's just the way
the cookie crumbles.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
Yes, it's lifetime. Tenure means something. If you're a federal employee,
or candidly in some places if you're a state employee.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
Yeah, so we're talking.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
So Loftus and I were talking during the break before
when you were arriving, Auditor Favor, and so I said,
you know he's coming in, We're going to talk about
issue one.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
And you said to me, what is issue one?

Speaker 3 (02:19):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (02:19):
He goes, what and I go, hold that thought, I
I don't want to know. Now, I didn't want to
talk about it at all with you.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
I will say this for people who maybe their eyes
glaze over when someone starts giving them the actual definition
and the things that Issue one actually is. It's a
no endorsement from President Trump for starters. So that's the
easiest way, I feel like, right off the back, because
there are a lot of people going, oh, Trump gave
it a no endorsement. I'm a no on Issue one.

(02:47):
I'm a know And you know, you brought up a
great thing, Auditor Favor. You said, if everybody who's voting
for Trump in the state of Ohio votes, know this
thing fails miserably.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Correct, what is it? Well, you don't know what? Right,
It's like a game show, A boy.

Speaker 3 (03:07):
That's really what the yes team wants you to know.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
The fact of the.

Speaker 3 (03:11):
Matter is is Issue one is all about trying to
rig and change the rules for how we draw congressional
districts and state legislative districts. They're guising in on the
on the concept of ending gerrymandering because that's a great
talking point, it tests well, and then they have this
flashy saying citizens not politicians, and so it makes her
really cool ads for them. The reality is is one

(03:32):
of my political mentors always said, the simple thing in
politics is just follow the money. What you need to
know about Issue one comes down to a couple of things. First,
if you knew that twenty six million dollars, the majority
of which comes from outside the state of Ohio, over
eighty percent comes from outside Ohio Ohio and less than
one percent or actual contributions from actual Ohioans, and you'd

(03:54):
say this money comes from out of state dark money
liberal and progressive groups, you'd probably say that's not something
I'm for as a conservative. But it gets worse than that.
What it really tries to do is to upend the
way we draw districts so that you're going to draw
legislative and congressional districts so that you're required to draw
districts so that they're proportional. And we'll talk more about

(04:16):
what proportionality means, but essentially, it means that Democrats are
entitled to so many seats and Republicans are entitled to
so many seats, and that's how they're going to try
and attack so Republicans can't win as many seats as
historically we do and open and free elections.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
I think another easy way, too, is and correct me
if I'm wrong here. But you say, do you like
the way Ohio? You know the way it's drawn up?
Now if you're somebody who votes, you should know somewhat.
If you're one of those people you like the way,
then a no vote is what you want to vote.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
Look great, great districts are drawn this way.

Speaker 3 (04:49):
We draw districts with the realization and if you've seen
the red blue maps after elections, you know what I'm
talking about. The blue are the inner cities and urban
core centers. They're all blue, they're all Democrats, and the
rest of the state of Ohio is all read. And
so if you're operating into the concept that you're going
to draw fair districts, you need to draw the districts compacked,
and you need to keep cities, counties, and townships together.

(05:10):
You do that, and the odds are somebody's going to
have a chance to be represented by somebody who shares
their thoughts, their.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
Ideas, and their values.

Speaker 3 (05:17):
This proposal essentially turns that on its head and says
we're not going to draw districts based on geographical considerations,
you know, compactness in keeping cities, counties, and townships together. No,
we're going to draw them on this proportionality concept. So
that means you're going to draw spider districts from urban
core centers through suburban areas into rural areas just to
have more Democrat districts. You're going to unpack those democrats
throughout the rest of the state and you're going to

(05:38):
have more Democrat seats. And look, I said this in
redistricting on the last chairman of the Redistricting Commission. Democrats
aren entitled to a damn thing. Republicans are entitled to
a damn thing. You win elections based on candidates, issues
and campaigns. That's what elections should be determined on, not
based on this concept that we're going to have. So
many Republican seats, hearing in so many Democrats.

Speaker 4 (06:01):
As a matter of fact, you know, Bob Clegwell and
Bob and I were talking, and Bob agrees with my assessment.
I think we stand to lose three or four Republican
seats in Congress federal Congress, and I think the super majority,
especially in the Senate, is a is bigly threatened. To
quote Donald Trump, big this is and it's all. It's

(06:21):
not based on that. But new Pole came out right.
Trump's up eight points in Ohio. This is a red state.
It is so the idea that you would have as
many Democrats or as many Republicans have to be equal,
that's ridiculous. We are a solid red conservative state. You
have to manipulate the districts to even get the Democrats

(06:42):
even competitive.

Speaker 3 (06:44):
You know what the Ohio Supreme Court said it best.
By the way, read the ballot language. If you can
go through sixteen pages of single space and figure out
how this is going to work, you're smarter than I am.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
Me too.

Speaker 3 (06:53):
And in the end, the Ohio Supreme Court said, the
ballot language that you're going to read is accurate, and
it specifically says this constitutional proposal will require will eliminate
anti gerrymanning provisions in the current constitution and require geomanning
to draw districts that favor either Republicans or Democrats.

Speaker 5 (07:11):
So they say, this is a lot of Soros money
coming in here to support this thing. So here's what
you need to say. You need to make an emotional
argument about this. Why does George Soros want spider districts
in Ohio?

Speaker 2 (07:25):
Why does that? Seriously?

Speaker 5 (07:28):
Nobody likes spiders. Here's what the left does very well.
They make it an emotional argument and then we then
then you have the right that comes back with like,
I've examined the data here and it appears as though
I'm asleep. I'm asleep.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
Why spider districts? Nobody?

Speaker 4 (07:44):
What about Steven Spielberg and his wife? They pumped one
hundred grand into this campaign.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
It is endo my wallets.

Speaker 3 (07:51):
Out of state millionaires and billionaires are funding this, Yes.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
And it really is.

Speaker 3 (07:54):
Look they've got some catchy I said the slogan ought
not be citizens versus politicians, to be out of state
special interests versus Ohiolans, right, because this is all about
trying to control Ohio is going to elect legislators and congressmen.
You mentioned the congressional delegation. You're spot on. The best
explanation I've had is that this is all about trying
to keep control of Congress and Democrat hands. But look,

(08:18):
we currently have ten Republican state are congressional members and
five Democrat congressional members. The goal is eight to seven.
And the way they're going to count eight eight Republicans
and sevens what they're going to tell you, because you
know we're fifty four to forty six state if you
ask them, that's really not what they want. They really
want seven eight because they're going to count Marcia Captor.
If Derek Marin cam'p beat her as a who is

(08:40):
in a fifty four to fifty six index Republican district,
they're going to count her as a Republican seat held
by a Democrat. And so, make no mistake, this is
all about winning those seats that they couldn't ordinarily win
by creating districts that favor them.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
And I'm one of those people that say I wish Columbus,
Cleveland and Cincinnati would stop just being blue every single time.
The mayor, the city council, all of it it's all
and it's just like they have taken over. Thank god,
we have the larger picture, which is the red state
of Ohio, but those main cities and Toledo for that matter,

(09:17):
I can't stand it, but I know that this really doesn't.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
What was a d Let's see who went blue last time.

Speaker 4 (09:24):
Franklin, Cuyahoga, Lucas, Hamilton, Athens, and Montgomery.

Speaker 3 (09:29):
I believe that's about right, and I was it actually,
Actually I think Montgomery went red.

Speaker 2 (09:33):
Now Montgomery went red.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
But those are the largest populations with Frest County, Summit County.

Speaker 4 (09:40):
But you have six counties in Ohio, six counties that
are blue out of eighty eight, eighty two out of
eighty six, two out of eighty eight are coming.

Speaker 3 (09:52):
Come on, man, if you're here in Franklin County, here's
what happens with this proportionality concept. The only place Democrats
can gain seats, because they're not going to gain a
seat in Mercer County, where I live. They're going to
only place they can gain seats is around urban core centers.
So what they're going to do is take the thirty
to forty percent of Republicans in Franklin County and they're

(10:12):
going to be completely disenfranchised because they're going to draw.
And they did this in the last proposed map. Franklin
County's one point three million people, it ought to support
ten or eleven state representative districts.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
You know how many they drew.

Speaker 3 (10:23):
To be a Republican out of that, you ought to
have three or four. You know how they drew one
or maybe two, depending on how you draw them. And
both of those were so close they probably could go Democrats.
And so what they're doing is oversampling in the city
core areas like Franklin County Democrat seats to make up
for all of the Democrats in areas like where I live,

(10:44):
where Trump only got eighty four percent of the vote,
so you got at least sixteen percent Democrats. Those Democrats
in a proportional system to.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
Be accounted for somewhere. State auditor Keith Faber in studio.
This is why I.

Speaker 5 (10:55):
Don't like spider districts. That's why I'm voting no on one.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
The on issue one are do you uh you gotta
roll right?

Speaker 2 (11:05):
You gotta yeah, you gotta take off. I know I'm
gonna go soon.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
I know you don't want to, but I don't, but uh,
you're welcome to stay as late as you want.

Speaker 5 (11:14):
I can, I can might be able to do it.

Speaker 1 (11:16):
One more break, Okay, can be coerced and auditor favor?

Speaker 4 (11:20):
He did?

Speaker 2 (11:20):
He said, well, oh, I thought it was slippery in here.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
The uh the Legacy Retirement Group dot com phone lines,
if you'd like to jump on and if you have
any questions for audit or favor.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
He was like, I'll take any questions.

Speaker 1 (11:35):
Anybody wants to ask me anything, by all means, please
join the conversation.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
A two one W t V and one eight hundred
six w TV.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
And so we got all that straight tohead where where
we got so much going on traffic and weather
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