In (cautiously) good news, the Ohio supreme court last week overturned the new maps for state legislative districts (on Wednesday) and congressional districts (on Friday). Their power to do so was written into the state constitution as part of voter-approved redistricting ballot issues in 2015 (legislative) and 2018 (congressional) passed by more than 70% of the voters.
Those issues created new requirements for drawing districts that more accurately represent the partisan breakdown of Ohio voters (about 54-46 Republican/ Democrat) and end meandering line-drawing and community-splitting that resulted in districts such as Marcy Kaptur’s (“The snake on the lake”) and Jim Jordan’s (“the duck district,” where he represents the liberal community of Oberlin, 150 miles from where he lives.)
The five Republicans on the redistricting commission chose to simply disregard the constitution and created legislative districts that would have retained the GOP supermajority in Columbus. Then House Speaker Bob Cupp and Senate Majority Leader Matt Huffman, apparently acting on their own, created congressional districts worse than the current ones, which give Republicans 75% of Ohio’s congressional seats: the new ones could result in a split as lopsided as 13-2. (An 8-7 or, at worst 9-6 split, would be accurate).
By a vote of 4-3, the justices told the redistricting commission to get back to work to draw more accurate districts. The three Republicans who voted not to overturn the maps twisted themselves into knots looking for technicalities to justify ignoring the clear intent of the voters. On Friday, when they voted against overturning the outrageously unfair congressional maps, they took an unprecedented step of not signing their opinion. Given the strained, nitpicky reasoning they used to say that outsized GOP power was somehow what Ohio voters wanted, it’s no wonder they were too embarrassed to identify themselves. (Also one of the justices is Pat DeWine, son of the governor, who is a defendant in this case. It’s beyond belief he didn’t recuse himself.)
On Tuesday January 18, the redistricting commission held its first meeting to redo the maps, doing little more than swearing in Democrat legislator Allison Russo to replace Emilia Sykes, who has resigned from the state legislature to run for Congress. Speaker Cupp hasn’t yet released a meeting schedule.
While many are justifiably skeptical — power doesn’t yield without a fight — Jen Miller of the Ohio League of Women Voters points out, “There were several on the commission who didn’t like the process and weren’t crazy about the maps, and so it’s my hope that we see the commissioners work across the aisle and create maps that really make sense for Ohio voters.”
She’s referring to Governor DeWine and Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who both expressed doubts about the constitutionality of the process and the maps, yet voted for them anyway. If these two Republicans were to join the two Democrats in supporting fair maps, that would be a good start. LaRose, whose job is overseeing state elections, is already whining about the time frame for primaries. There are plenty of maps on the table, including fair ones. Just pass one.
While we don’t yet know what the outcome of the court-mandated redistricting do-over will be, pressure can’t hurt. Here are the members of the redistricting commission and their contact info. Call. Email. Be polite. But tell them Ohio needs maps that don’t make voting futile because the results — no matter which party you support — are pre-decided by the maps.
Speaker Bob Cupp:
rep04@ohiohouse.gov
(614) 466-9624
@SpeakerCupp
Senate President Matt Huffman Senate President
huffman@ohiosenate.gov
(614) 466-7584
@matthuffman1
Secretary of State Frank LaRose
(614) 466-2655
@FrankLaRose
Auditor Keith Faber
(614) 466-4514 (main number) – or ask for Mark Shade – 614.387.6294
ohioauditor.gov/contact/inquiry.aspx
@OhioAuditor
Governor Mike Dewine:
(614) 466-3555
governor.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/governor/contact/contact-us,
@GovMikeDeWine
Senate Minority leader Vernon Sykes
(614) 466-7041
@DrVernonSykes
ohiosenate.gov/senators/sykes/contact
Acting House Minority Leader Allison Russo:
(614) 466-8012
@Russo4Ohio