David Pepper

Template:TOCnestleft David Pepper is an Ohio Democratic Party leader.

Fighting for Ohio: The Swing State of Swing States

This June 24, 2016 Democracy in Color podcast with Aimee Allison, is a discussion with David Pepper, Chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party and Subodh Chandra, a Cleveland-based civil rights attorney, on how Democratic Party politics in Ohio are adjusting to the New American Majority.

Aimee: The central thesis of Brown is the New White is that the New American Majority which is multiracial and progressive, is actually the existing voting bloc that has the majority now. Everyone [needs to be] engaged in voting and that means that the party needs to do things differently. But there’s been indications that many state level parties just aren’t able to turn that pivot that quickly, in terms of money and voter engagement for the true swing voters. Talk to me about that. How does that kind of information and data that’s in that book and in discussion, influence actually being able to win in Ohio? How do you win these Democratic seats?

David: Honestly I think that the contribution that that book will make short and long term is enormous. Our goal through this cycle and beyond is to execute on the lessons that that book teaches. Which is, if we’re going to win, we have to energize this New American Majority. Ohio is the template of the country and we basically reflect almost the exact breakdown of the country so we need to do that here and in every way we can.

When I ran for Party Chair a year and a half ago, [former State Senator Nina Turner and I] ran together. She became what we call our Chair of Party Engagement. She left and has been on leave because she was out campaigning for Bernie Sanders and we were neutral. But she helped us think about how to recreate and redesign the party. This party engagement area that she oversaw — which is now a division of the party — is all about trying to structure differently, have it be all about constituency building. Last night, we had our first ever iftar — when the day of fasting is over — and we had over a 120 Muslim Ohioans at the Democratic Party headquarters. Muslim Ohioans from all over Ohio came to that. It was amazing. It was one of the best things I’ve been part of. We take very seriously the need to have diversity in everything we do from staff to candidate recruitment.

Voting laws struck down

June 2016 Ohio Republicans lost another federal lawsuit over their attempts to restrict Ohioans’voting rights. Judge Algenon L. Marbley of U.S. District Court in Columbus ruled that state officials violated the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law and the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Democratic appointee’s decision echoes thatof Republican-appointed Judge Michael H. Watson late last month on a separate case that restored a ‘Golden Week’ of early voting Republicans had eliminated. Marbley also banned enforcement of several sections of state law dealing with absentee and provisional voting procedures that caused ballots to be thrown out even for ‘trivial’ paperwork errors such as an error in listing date of birth. While members of the GOP-dominated legislature may not have intentionally set out to racially discriminate when they passed the new laws subsequently signed by Gov. John Kasich, that was the effect, the judge concluded.

The Ohio Democratic Party pressed the suit, originally brought by a pair of organizations for the homeless. Defendants were Secretary of State Jon Husted and Attorney General Mike DeWine in their roles of enacting and defending a pair of laws passed by the GOP-dominated legislature. Ohio Democratic Chairman David Pepper said in a statement: ‘For the second time in less than a month, Ohio voters have won a huge victory in the courts, and Secretary of State Jon Husted is being forced to stop making it harder for Ohioans to vote and for every vote to be counted. This trial showed quite clearly that every lawfully cast vote was not being counted here in Ohio. Many lawfully registered Ohioans have had their votes cast aside because of new and unnecessary requirements that were shown to be discriminatory. ... It’s time for Husted, Kasich and Ohio Republicans to stop violating our constitutional right to vote.’ Cleveland attorney Subodh Chandra, who represented the homeless groups, said, ‘Because of the court’s decision, thousands of Ohioans will now have their legitimate votes counted in this fall’s presidential election ” no thanks to Husted and his fellow Republicans’ scheming.′

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