Ohio’s 16th congressional district is being scrutinized for its new boundaries following the state legislature’s September approval of a redistricting plan. At the behest of a top aide for U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, who hails from Ohio’s 8th, Republican mapmakers carved out just one special portion of the city of Canton and attached it to the 16th, which is represented by Congressman Jim Renacci. They did this presumably to keep a local steel company, and GOP contributor, in the 16th, according to critics of the reapportionment plan.

 

The Canton section of the newly-drawn district contains no residents, only an industrial part of the city where Timken Co. operates manufacturing operations. The district lines are so warped that even though three Timken plants and the company’s technology center are in the 16th, Timken headquarters are split in two, with the office of Timken President and CEO James W. Griffith ending up in the 7th district, which is represented by another Republican, Bob Gibbs.

 

According to Robert Wang of CantonRep.com, “since 2009, local residents with the last name of Timken, Timken executives and their spouses, Timken board members and the Timken Co. Good Government Fund contributed at least $124,400 to Renacci’s campaign fund and the Renacci-Ohio Victory Fund.”

-David Wallechinsky, Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Boehner's Team had Role in Creating Timken 'Peninsula' (by Robert Wang, CantonRep.com)

16th District Lines Drawn Around Timken Plants (by Robert Wang, CantonRep.com)