Lawmakers take steps toward compromise
A whiff of progress on congressional redistricting could be permeating the Statehouse.
Democrats have offered a package of amendments to the GOP-proposed plan aimed at revamping a map-making process that allows the majority to gerrymander districts to its benefit. Meanwhile, Sen. Matt Huffman, R-Lima, the prime sponsor of the plan, indicated willingness to make some changes and said he won’t push for a vote unless it has significant bipartisan support.
Lawmakers would need to approve a measure by Feb. 7 to qualify the issue for the May ballot.
Doing so would get out in front of the Fair Districts = Fair Elections coalition, which already has collected about 200,000 of the 306,000 signatures needed to get its congressional redistricting plan on the November ballot.
Republican leaders oppose the Fair Districts plan, while some coalition leaders testified in opposition to Huffman’s plan Tuesday.
“Ohioans are tired of partisan bickering and hungry for real reform and real leadership. Let’s not waste this opportunity to work together,” said Heather Taylor-Miesle, executive director of the Ohio Environmental Council and a coalition leader.
Noting the criticism of his plan for allowing the 10 most populous counties to be split into multiple congressional districts, Huffman said, “I think there’s probably some room to deal with that issue.”
Critics have argued that allowing urban counties to be divided up dilutes the concentrations of Democratic voters.
Democrats are proposing doing away with an exact population requirement, minimizing county splits, mandating that no map be drawn to favor a political party, stipulating that the vote of half of the minority party is needed to approve a map, and eliminating the ability to approve a fouryear map with no minority votes.
“By minimizing the splits, you’re minimizing the ability to gerrymander,” said Sen. Vernon Sykes, D-Akron, stressing that Democrats want to see the full package of amendments implemented.
Under Ohio’s current process, the majority in the legislature draws the map.
Taylor-Miesle was critical of how a map could be approved and of some of the criteria for drawing a map. For example, she said, the proposal’s requirement that each district be the exact same population, within one person, “basically negates any other criteria that could be followed.”
She and others argue that the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed a state to slightly vary district sizes if it serves other legitimate purposes.
The Ohio Chamber of Commerce, meanwhile, said is not interested in helping pay for another partisan redistricting fight.
The chamber helped Republicans defeat redistricting proposals in 2005 and 2012. Keith Lake, the group’s vice president of government affairs, urged leaders of both parties to forge a bipartisan plan to fix a map-drawing process that “isn’t working for Ohioans and must be reformed.”
“The Ohio Chamber doesn’t want, and the voters don’t deserve, another unnecessary and expensive general election fight over a take-it-or-leave-it redistricting proposal developed without input from both parties,” Lake said.
“Ohioans are tired of partisan bickering and hungry for real reform and real leadership. Let’s not waste this opportunity to work together.”
— Heather Taylor-Miesle, executive director of the Ohio Environmental Council and a coalition leader