For three decades, Ohio Republicans have controlled redistricting — the drawing of legislative and congressional district lines — with each ten-year map becoming more extreme than the last. Currently, for instance, despite getting about 52% of the vote statewide, Republicans hold 75% of Ohio’s congressional seats — 12 out of 16. Not a single seat has flipped in ten years, no matter what the political climate or mood of the voters. Ohio has some of the most infamous congressional districts in the country such as Marcy Kaptur’s long, skinny “snake on the lake” district (OH-09) extending from Lakewood to Toledo, and Jim Jordan’s “duck” district (Oh-04) meandering from Oberlin almost to the Indiana border west of Columbus.
Meanwhile in Columbus, radical rightwing legislators push more bills on guns and abortion that go against popular opinion, and have recklessly jeopardized the health of Ohioans and fellow legislators during the COVID pandemic. They do this because they know they have little chance of losing a general election, although they could lose in a primary to a MORE extreme candidate.
With computer software being able to identify voters on an increasingly granular level, experts have predicted that if the trend continued in 2021, voters literally wouldn’t count anymore. And when voters feel their votes don’t count, turnout in all elections drops.
That’s why one of the most important political issues coming up is redistricting, scheduled to take place in 2021. Fortunately, in 2015 Ohio voters passed redistricting reform for legislative districts, and in 2018, passed a similar measure for drawing congressional districts, both passing with overwhelming majorities of around 70%. Unfortunately, districts will still be drawn by politicians (many states are moving to independent bipartisan commissions). Fortunately, the ballot measures put in place some guidelines they’re required to follow. Unfortunately, there are loopholes and as we’ve seen, some Ohio Republicans aren’t keen on following guidelines.
In addition, we recently learned that the census data on which congressional districts are based will be delivered to states September 30 instead of March 31 as originally planned, thanks to pandemic delays in collection data, throwing mandated schedules for drawing new districts into disarray. Ohio is expected to lose a seat, which will require re-juggling. If the mandated standards are adhered to at all, the most extreme gerrymander the Republican-dominated map drawers could credibly come up with would be 9-6 favoring the GOP. That would mean a gain of two Democratic seats and a loss of three Republican seats. That’s not likely to go over well with Ohio’s currently dominant party.
But citizens aren’t helpless, as the passage of the two redistricting ballots measures showed. It’s time to get educated and prepare to monitor and pressure elected officials who form the redistricting panels.
In 2019, the formation of the national organization All on the Line was led by President Obama and his former attorney general Eric Holder. It’s focusing on ten states that are heavily gerrymandered or having other redistricting issues — and one them is Ohio. All on the Line Ohio is led by Columbus-area activist Katy Shanahan. Now is a good time to follow them, sign up for their alerts, and get to know what All on the Line Ohio is working on. We’ll have more on this as it develops.