Vote to send Swartz to Congress

Behold the power of gerrymandering. Whether or not U.S. Rep. Bob Latta, R-Bowling Green, is a good lawmaker likely will be of little consequence in his reelection bid, given the Republican tilt of the newly drawn 5th Congressional District, which includes all of Lorain County. According to Dave's Redistricting, 60.2 percent of the district's voters preferred Republicans in recent elections, compared to 37.3 percent who favored Democrats. That makes Latta the prohibitive favorite to win the race this fall against his opponent, Craig Swartz, the chairman of the Wyandot County Democratic Party. The district also includes Crawford, Hancock, Henry, Huron, Mercer, Paulding, Putnam, Seneca and Van Wert counties and portions of Wood and Wyandot counties. Gerrymandering, unfortunately, is all too familiar to Lorain County voters. For the past 10 years, the county has been split among three congressional districts, all of which overly favored one party or the other. That led to consistent victories for U.S. Reps. Bob Gibbs, R-Lakeville, Jim Jordan, R-Urbana, and Marcy Kaptur, D-Toledo. Gibbs isn't running for reelection in his new district, while Jordan is once again in a safe district. Kaptur is in a toss-up district. None of those new districts includes Lorain County, although the Erie County side of Vermilion sits in Kaptur's new district. Latta, 66, was unopposed in his primary, while Swartz, 64, defeated Amherst City Councilman Martin Heberling III in the Democratic primary. (We endorsed Heberling in that race.) That Latta is a conservative shouldn't come as a surprise. His old district was likewise gerrymandered to elect a Republican. He is pro-life, deeply skeptical of gun control and concerned about the federal deficit and the economy. Disappointingly, he voted against the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the CHIPS Act, both of which will do a lot of good in Ohio. Another concern of ours is that a Republican-controlled House might hold the country hostage by refusing to raise the debt ceiling unless GOP demands (whatever those end up being) are met. Latta, who supports a balanced budget amendment, has voted in the past against raising the debt ceiling. Such increases are routine and necessary so the federal government can pay its debt obligations. Failing to raise the debt ceiling would be catastrophic for the economy. Latta struck us as what one might have called an establishment Republican in the days before former President Donald Trump took over the party. Indeed, Latta is the son of Del Latta, who spent 30 years in Congress. The younger Latta served in the Ohio Senate and Ohio House before winning a special election in 2007 to replace fellow Republican U.S. Rep. Paul Gillmor, who died in office. Latta has a decent reputation when it comes to constituent services and has done some interesting work as a member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. He's in line to become chairman of its Subcommittee on Communications and Technology if Republicans win control of the House. What we cannot get past, however, are some of Latta's actions following the 2020 presidential election. Although Latta conceded during an endorsement interview that Joe Biden was the legitimately elected president of the United States, he was one of the Republicans in Congress who signed onto a Texas lawsuit seeking to interfere with the certification of the election results in four swing states. In so doing, he abetted Trump's falsehoods about the election. To his credit, Latta voted to certify the Electoral College results on Jan. 6, 2021, and condemned those who attacked the Capitol that day. Yet he voted against impeaching Trump over the attack. He also voted against the creation of an independent commission to investigate what happened that terrible day. Latta told us that if Republicans win control of the House, they would provide oversight of the Biden administration, which he argued had been lacking under Democratic control. Oversight is important, but what does Latta's refusal to hold a president of his own party accountable say about his desire for true oversight? Republicans provided little in the way of oversight when they ran Congress during the first two years of the scandal-plagued Trump administration. As for Swartz, he served a four-year term on Upper Sandusky City Council before unsuccessfully running for mayor in 2007. He's also run and lost in races for the Ohio House and Ohio Senate. He's had a varied career in the private sector, including stints abroad working in international finance. He's also owned a restaurant and worked as a truck driver, an insurance agent, a forklift operator, a real estate agent, a substitute teacher at a career center and a business consultant. Swartz told us that he believed the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to strike down Roe v. Wade had made abortion one of the central issues this campaign season. Being a pro-choice candidate, he said, could help him. That's an overly optimistic read of the situation. Swartz's stances on a range of issues, including guns, police reform and taxes put him in the Democratic mainstream, which is unlikely to help him in this district. While Swartz is to be commended for offering voters a choice, we suspect that casting a ballot for him will amount to little more than a protest vote. Nevertheless, it's what voters should do, if only to register their dissatisfaction with gerrymandering and to encourage Latta to seek moderation if he wins. And, if by some chance, Swartz wins, he would make a good congressman.