Schwarzenegger toasts redistricting efforts
Just as he promised, former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger broke out the Austrian schnapps with Gov. John Kasich and legislative leaders on Friday to toast Ohio’s success in moving toward a reformed congressional redistricting process.
At the Statehouse, Schwarzenegger, who pushed a redistricting ballot issue in California in 2008, gathered with some of the lawmakers most involved in the bipartisan deal that voters will decide on the May 8 ballot.
“I want to make sure the people of Ohio hear us loud and clear that it is important to vote for this,” he said before the toast. “This is extremely important for the people. I’ve seen in California the effect that it has.”
He said the California Legislature’s approval rating went from 14 percent to over 50 percent after redistricting reform.
In a short video made in early February congratulating Kasich and lawmakers on a bipartisan deal “terminating gerrymandering in Ohio,” Schwarzenegger said that when he was in town for his annual Arnold Sports Festival this weekend, he would bring Austrian schnapps to “toast this great victory.”
Republicans, Democrats and leaders of a coalition that was pushing a separate redistricting issue for the November ballot, slogged through a few weeks of rocky negotiations to agree on a plan that voters will decide as Issue 1.
Schwarzenegger heaped praise on the process to reach a bipartisan agreement, later noting the contrast in California, where lawmakers resisted change so he pushed an expensive citizens initiative in 2005 that was defeated. With the governor’s help, California voters did approve a new redistricting process in 2008.
“It was very difficult. Both parties beat me up for it because they wanted to keep the status quo,” he said. “This is unbelievable that legislative leaders get together, show leadership and come up with a way of solving and reforming the system, and then taking it to the people. That’s the ideal way.”
Kasich originally proposed putting a redistricting plan in his budget bill in early 2017, but said he was assured by Speaker Cliff Rosenberger, R-Clarksville, and Senate President Larry Obhof, R-Medina, that they would work on the matter separately.
Kasich credited minority Democrats for compromising, rather than trying to use the issue as a tool to drive turnout in November.
“This is incredible what they did,” Kasich said of legislative leaders. “We’re now a model for the country.”
Senate Minority Leader Kenny Yuko, D-Richmond Heights, said the two sides put aside party differences.
“We put aside our personal agendas, and we worked together as a group sharing ideas and coming to compromise, and agreeing we would all come out a little bit ahead if we worked together.”
Kasich joined Schwarzenegger and other Republicans last year in signing a legal brief opposing the Republican Party in a redistricting case before the U.S. Supreme Court out of Wisconsin. The two in January signed another brief supporting a challenge of Maryland’s Democratic congressional gerrymandering.
Ohio Republicans drew a heavily gerrymandered map in 2011 that has allowed the party to control 12 of 16 congressional districts.
Lawmakers will draw a map again in 2021 after the next census. If state Issue 1 is approved, passing a 10-year map would, for the first time, require significant bipartisan support either from the legislature or, if that fails, from a seven-member commission of elected officials.
If a bipartisan deal is not reached, the majority party could draw a four-year map but with more stringent criteria on splitting counties and drawing districts for partisan gain.