Redrawing of districts might not alter much
Without bipartisan backing, new maps will just be good for 4 years
With Republicans jury-rigged into a dozen mostly safe districts and Democrats packed into four, not a single seat in the U.S. House of Representatives has flipped during the past nine years in Ohio.
Republicans also continued their decade-plus hold on super majorities in both chambers of the Ohio General Assembly, their number of seats out of proportion to their statewide share of the vote.
Tuesday’s election is supposedly the last staged under some of the most gerrymandered political boundaries in the nation – lines deliberately drawn in 2011 to reinforce the reign of the
ruling Republicans over state politics.
Guided by 2020 census figures, two constitutional amendments overwhelmingly approved by Ohio voters in 2015 and 2018 will lead to the redistricting of legislative and congressional lines to ideally create more competitive districts for 2022.
How out of line are some of the current sprawling U.S. House lines?
Democrat Marcy Kaptur’s thin “snake on the lake” district stretches from west of Toledo to the Cleveland area – at one point connected only by the Sandusky Bay bridge. And Democrat Joyce Beatty’s “Franklin County sinkhole” packed together Democrats to allow two Republican districts to take in Gop-friendly parts of the county.
They are so out of line that a panel of three federal judges last year unanimously declared Ohio’s congressional gerrymandering unconstitutional, finding it “so skewed toward one party that the electoral outcome is predetermined.” But the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the ruling.
Ohio’s Republicans in Congress received 52% of the statewide vote in 2018, but continued to own 75% of the seats. Under the same standard, the Ohio House could contain seven more Democrats than the current 61-38 Republican advantage.
Republicans retain the upper hand in the coming map drawing in Ohio, but face a mandatory duty next year to draw politically neutral, more-compact districts. They also are limited in splitting political jurisdictions to intentionally pack certain voters into certain districts.
However, there might not be much time for state officials and lawmakers to design new maps, with the stagnant population of Ohio likely accompanied by the loss of a seat in Congress.
The pandemic-delayed census might not produce the final numbers needed to recraft political boundaries until late June, leaving only a few months to produce new maps, one leading Democrat warns.
The road to redistricting is somewhat complex under the new constitutional mandates, with failure to reach bipartisan approval resulting in maps good for only four years – and requiring another redesign – instead of the desired decade until the next census.
The legislature is on the hook for congressional maps, with a recrafted redistricting board responsible for legislative maps. The Republican-dominated board also would get a shot at crafting congressional lines if lawmakers fail in their first attempt.
The Ohio Redistricting Commission will consist of Republicans Gov. Mike Dewine, Auditor Keith Faber, Secretary of State Frank Larose, plus four members appointed by the House and Senate majority and minority leaders, ensuring two Democrats.
Faber said he expects the commission to “studiously follow” the constitutional mandate to draw lines that are politically neutral. As Senate president, he helped draft the ballot measures.
“I think they are readily achievable,” Faber said. “Keeping communities intact – if you can do that, you are going to take care of a lot of other problems; that’s a huge factor.”
Democrats and Republicans must compromise in designing maps, the auditor said. “I hope the minority is sage and careful in using its veto,” he said, adding that the prospect of GOP-APproved lines that last only four years “is not good for anybody.”
Larose, who also participated in the redistricting plans while in the Senate,
is optimistic that the General Assembly and the commission will follow voters’ expectations of fairly drawn districts.
“Ohioans wanted to see a more balanced process based on compromise and working together, with the concept that voters pick their politicians rather than the other way around,” Larose said.
The secretary of state is confident the process will produce bipartisan “reasonable and competitive and compact lines and keep, where possible, communities of interest together.”
“I really don’t believe the public is nearly as divided as our politics would suggest,” Larose said. “It’s up to us to be statesmen and stateswomen and find solutions and not always be focused on the red team versus blue team squabbles.”
Dewine’s office declined to issue a statement on redistricting, saying he is busy confronting the exploding COVID-19 pandemic.
Downtrodden Democrats are still leery about Republicans attempting to craft political boundaries that favor their party.
“It’s been a lost decade in Ohio politics,” Ohio Democratic Chairman David Pepper said. “The folks who rigged the state in 2011 deprived Ohioans of their choice for the legislature and Congress for a decade.”
The “rigged” districts have allowed Republicans to rule with impunity, leading to corruption such as the federal racketeering probe of former GOP House Speaker Larry Householder and House Bill 6 and a lack of accountability that permits U.S. Rep. “Jim Jordan and (state Rep.) Nino Vitale to act like nuts,” Pepper said.
The key is following the voter-mandated process in the redistricting revamp. “If it is respected, we can have a new day in Ohio politics where elected officials have to earn their reelections,” the chairman said.
Ohio House Minority Leader Emilia Strong Sykes, D-akron, worries that Republicans will exploit their ultimate higher hand in the redistricting process. “They may view drawing lines as a political tool and circumvent the process in order to maintain power. That would not be beneath them,” she said.
“They have supermajorities in a state that is pretty close to 50/50. Do they not think that their ideas are pretty
good? Do they not think they could compete? Only people who feel like they are going to lose cheat the game and rig the system in their favor.”
Sykes expressed concern about the delay in getting the new census data since they may not arrive until the end of June, which coincides with finalizing the state budget. State officials, under the new constitutional obligations, are supposed to have new maps ready before autumn. She said she has been pushing for a year to get legislative funds to allow Democrats’ work on maps to begin.
Asked if bipartisan maps can be produced, Sen. Matt Huffman, R-lima, said, “Hopeful is always an easy word to say yes to. Am I optimistic? Yes.”
Huffman, eyed as a possible Senate president next year, said one of the fundamental changes to the legislative maps is that districts can only vary in population by 5%. Now they can vary up to 10% if doing so keeps a county intact. The district boundaries are going to change for this reason alone, regardless of population shifts. Huffman used still-growing Delaware County as an example of population change that will necessitate redrawing lines.
People are less bound to their parties than they used to be, he said. “If a district is 52% Republican or 55% Republican, some people think that makes a difference. But I think strong candidates and campaigns more than make up for small changes in some political index,” Huffman said.
Catherine Turcer, executive director of the good-government group Common Cause Ohio, hopes lawmakers and state officials honor Ohioans’ desire for meaningful, bipartisan redistricting.
“Unfortunately, the spirit of the reform can easily be violated,” she said. “It focuses on a very heavy buy-in from both parties.”
Turcer pointed to Republican insistence that a map created by just one party, which can remain in effect for four years, as “an invitation to games.”
“It would be an enormous power move to draw lines that favor your political party, the party in power,” she said. “It’s not like that impulse will automatically disappear.” rludlow@dispatch.com @Randyludlow astaver@dispatch.com @Annastaver