Now, the party that controls two of three statewide offices (governor; state auditor; secretary of state) gets to draw state Senate and House districts to favor that party. The minority party effectively has no say.
Democrats controlled apportionment after the 1970 and 1980 censuses. No surprise, Democrats ran the Ohio House for 22 years that followed (though Republicans were able to keep or win the state Senate for many of them). Republicans ran apportionment after the 1990, 2000 and 2010 censuses. So, no surprise, Republicans won control of the House 20 years ago and have kept it, except in 2009 and 2010 (after Barack Obama first carried Ohio). Meanwhile, the state Senate has been Republican-run for 30 consecutive years.
Issue 1, proposed by a nearly unanimous legislature, was co-sponsored by then-Reps. Matt Huffman, a Lima Republican, and Vernon Sykes, an Akron Democrat. It would create a seven-member Redistricting Commission. The commission would, like today’s Apportionment Board, include the governor, auditor and secretary of state. But the Redistricting Commission would also include four appointees, two per party. That would guarantee that at least two of the seven commissioners would be from the minority party.
Issue 1’s key reform is that for an “apportionment” (legislative map) to apply, as now, for 10 years, at least two minority party Redistricting commissioners would have to support it. Otherwise, the map would only apply for four years.
No coincidence, Ohio elects governors, auditors and secretaries of state every four years. So: A Redistricting Commission majority that refused to bargain with a Redistricting Commission minority to approve a 10-year map might find itself the commission’s new minority in four years – when a new General Assembly districts would have to be drawn. That is, Issue 1 would tie carrots to sticks to encourage bipartisan district-drawing.
Among those endorsing Issue 1 are the Ohio Republican Party and the Ohio Education Association, the union that represents more than 121,000 teachers and other educational personnel. (If the GOP-OEA backing of Issue 1 doesn’t embody the phrase “wide spectrum,” nothing could.)
Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish, a Democrat who was House speaker in 2009-2010, when partisan game-playing derailed an earlier reform plan, also backs Issue 1. “I am supporting it,” Budish said. “It’s not perfect, but it’s a significant advance.” And Budish is urging the Ohio Democratic Party to also endorse Issue 1.
Democratic State Chair David Pepper said he hopes the party will decide its position on Issue 1 in the next month to six weeks. The party’s look-see, he said, is a form of due diligence: Democrats want to determine if Issue 1’s rules for drawing Senate and House districts would give Democrats a genuinely fair shot at capturing either chamber.
Meanwhile, although Pepper didn’t say so, there’s likely a yen among some party insiders to ignore Issue 1 and instead aim, in 2018, to elect at least two Democrats to the three Apportionment Board slots – governor; auditor; secretary of state. Then, after 2020’s Census, the board’s Democrats would draw pro-Democratic General Assembly districts. Trouble is, Ohio Democrats have thrown those dice before – and every time, they’ve come up snake eyes.
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