Once per week, we use the Morning Briefing to take a key issue and give you all the background and context you need to understand it.
Here’s what we learned about redistricting:
Credit: Avery Kreemer
Credit: Avery Kreemer
The latest
• The ballot: The citizen initiated proposal, backed by Citizens Not Politicians, received 535,005 valid signatures statewide and met signature gathering quotas in 58 counties according to Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose — more than enough to get on the ballot this November.
• Proposed constitutional amendment: The proposed amendment would scrap Ohio’s current redistricting process — which was instituted by voters through various rounds of constitutional amendments in 2015 and 2018 — and replace it with a 15-member Citizen Redistricting Commission.
Where did we begin?
• Unconstitutional maps: The Ohio Redistricting Commission has passed maps that the Ohio Supreme Court judged to be unconstitutional seven times, including five times for state maps and twice for congressional maps.
• 2022 general election: The congressional map, despite the court’s ruling that it was gerrymandered in favor of Republicans, was allowed to stick by a federal court in order to conduct the 2022 general election.
• Appealed to the Supreme Court: The case was eventually appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which, through a different but related decision on redistricting in North Carolina, vacated the Ohio Supreme Court’s previous opinion on congressional districts and sent the issue back down to the state to be reconsidered.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
The big changes:
• Incumbent legislators: One considerable difference between the new proposal and the current system involves how the commission is told to deal with incumbent legislators. In the current system, incumbent legislators cannot be drawn into the same districts, which restricts the flexibility the commission has in drawing the maps. Under the new proposal, the hometowns of incumbent legislators would not be considered, which could result in incumbent legislators getting drawn out of their districts completely.
• Public process: The panel would meet more often than the Ohio Redistricting Commission is required to and would be bound to take more actions, such as the actual map drawing, in public — a significant diversion from the current process.
What would a new commission look like?
• The new commission, which backers insist would be nonpartisan and disconnected from politicians’ interests, would consist of five Republicans, five Democrats and five unaffiliated registered voters.
• Current and former politicians, political party officials, and lobbyists would be prohibited from serving on the commission.
• According to Citizens Not Politicians: Similar panels have been created in seven states: Michigan, Arizona; California; Colorado; Idaho, Montana; and Washington state.
Credit: Avery Kreemer
Credit: Avery Kreemer
What they’re saying
• “My goal is to ensure that representation is fair,” Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio said. “What we’ve learned in these decades of extreme gerrymandering in Ohio is the only way that can happen is if politicians and lobbyists are taken out of the equation.”
• “As far as accountability, I don’t know where accountability is right now in the system we have, quite frankly,” said retired Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, a Republican who has become the face of the citizen-initiated amendment. “They weren’t accountable to the citizens, they weren’t accountable to the Supreme Court, and you know what happened.”
• “I think that the people who are making an important decision like this ought to be elected officials who are accountable to the public, not unknown bureaucrats somewhere someplace and subject to whatever rules (are in) a 32-page, single spaced document,” said Matt Huffman, R-Lima, Senate President.