Several readers of the Republican persuasion complained about part of last week's column. The column mentioned, in passing, a proposed state constitutional amendment that petition signatures may place on November's ballot:

"The initiative, proposed by a Voters First coalition led by the League of Women Voters of Ohio, would create a nonpartisan Citizens Independent Redistricting Commission to draw General Assembly and congressional districts."

The GOP-run Apportionment Board now draws General Assembly districts. The General Assembly, also GOP-run, draws congressional districts. The party that controls the Apportionment Board -- meaning, the party that holds at least two of three statewide elected executive offices (governor, state auditor, secretary of state) -- draws General Assembly districts to favor that party.

The party that controls the General Assembly draws congressional districts to favor that party, assuming the governor doesn't veto those districts.

In so many words, the readers' gripe was that Voters First should be considered a front for labor unions and Democrats, and the column didn't say that.

Complainant No. 1: "[Ohio] Democrats are frustrated that they have been unable or unwilling to field competent campaigns or candidates in Ohio for the last 20 years. Even when they gerrymandered districts [in 1971 and 1981], the GOP was able to win the Ohio Senate [in the 1980s] and hold it in good years and bad against [Democrat-drawn] lines." Democrats, this reader wrote, "refuse to recognize that Ohio is a right-leaning, centrist state. So, their solution to their inability to win electorally is to win by rigging the system."

And, from Complainant No. 2: "Depicting the redistricting initiative as 'nonpartisan,' headed by the League of Women Voters, is like mentioning Snow White without referencing the Seven Dwarfs, let alone the poison apple. People ought to know they are being asked to support [a] Democrat-union 'reform.' "

Other readers claimed, in so many words, that Democratic wrongs justify Republican wrongs, too -- that the late Vern Riffe, the Ohio House's Democratic speaker from 1975 through 1994, rigged districts. And it is certainly true that in 1983 a Democratic-run General Assembly and Democratic Gov. Richard F. Celeste wrote Ohio's collective-bargaining law for public employees.

So that should let Republicans work their magic, right? That, however, is like saying the U.S. Treasury should tax today's British tea-drinkers because, hey, 230-odd years ago, George III taxed American tea-drinkers.

That's also ancient history. But as Ronald Reagan said in a famous Freudian slip, "Facts are stupid things." They get in the way.

The Ohio Constitution's current apportionment article took effect in the mid-1960s. There was an initial apportionment, then reapportionments in 1971, 1981, 1991, 2001 and 2011 -- a total of six. Democrats controlled two -- in 1971 and 1981. Republicans controlled four.

Ohio has written nine congressional redistricting plans over 100 years. Democrats completely controlled just one -- in 1913, signed by then-Gov. James M. Cox. Republicans completely controlled four (including today's).

True, for congressional districts drawn in 1951, 1972, 1982 and 1991-92, a Democratic governor or Democratic Ohio House had input -- rode shotgun alongside the GOP. But Republicans were at the wheel. So the six-of-one, half-dozen-of-the-other, "Democrats did it" argument doesn't exactly apply to Ohio reapportionment and redistricting politics. That, in turn, raises this point:

Ohioans know no party will ever willingly give up its own advantages. So why should voters tolerate the status quo on apportionment and congressional districting? People are entitled to expect self-sacrifice from saints, but only fools expect it from the average officeholder. And "average" is exactly what many of Ohio's state legislators, and members of Congress, are.

Suddes, a member of The Plain Dealer's editorial board, writes from Ohio University.