Good government groups are active in Ohio again, and you might see some of them holding a Citizens Not Politicians petition. The Citizens Not Politicians initiative is collecting signatures to bring reform to Ohio’s redistricting process. If passed by Ohio voters in November, this change to the Ohio constitution will remove politicians from the process of creating legislative maps and shift that responsibility to citizens through the creation of an independent redistricting commission.
Why is this important? Ohio voters overwhelmingly passed redistricting reform measures at the ballot box in 2015 and 2018 because they wanted to make the redistricting process fair. But those on the Ohio Redistricting Commission didn’t follow the rules.
In 2021 and 2022, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled seven times that the Ohio maps created by the commission were unconstitutional; five times for state maps and twice for congressional maps.
How could this happen? The problem is that the Ohio Constitution doesn’t have a penalty for creating unconstitutional maps. Despite a constitutional mandate requiring an open and transparent process, politicians on the Ohio Redistricting Commission made these illegal maps behind closed doors over and over again. When fair district maps were needed for the 2022 election and had not been provided by the commission, Ohio voters saw it for what it was.