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We have time to look
at just one rural district in the 1971 legislative plan. We choose HD 95 in the
Appalachian southeast. It has a C.I. of 18.5.
Described by a resident as "a banana with a tumor on both ends," it is what happens when you try to squeeze southeast Ohio Republicans into one HD, so that three Democrat-oriented HDs can be engineered on the east, west, and northwest. Incidentally, it pairs incumbent Republican representatives David Weissert and Sam Speck against each other. Speck became its representative.
As he put it, "In going from one end of my district to the other I had to drive 30 miles through another district." During his final years in the legislature Speck was a leader in the districting reform effort.