Republican Gov. Mike DeWine on Wednesday called on Ohio voters to reject the voter-proposed “Citizens Not Politicians” ballot issue that will appear on November’s statewide ballot.
If Ohioans ratify the plan – proposed by the petition signatures of 535,005 registered voters (almost 121,000 more than the required minimum) – the proposed constitutional amendment would wrest away control of drawing the state’s congressional and legislative districts from Statehouse insiders, including DeWine.
A 5-member Ohio Citizens Redistricting Commission, composed of a mix of Democrats, independents and Republicans, but excluding current or former politicians and lobbyists, would draw districts.
DeWine instead wants voters to adopt a plan like Iowa’s General Assembly adopted in 1980. It requires Iowa’s equivalent of Ohio’s non-partisan Legislative Service Commission to draw Iowa’s congressional and legislative seats, then win the Iowa legislature’s OK of those districts. According to PolitiFact, Iowa law says, “legislative maps cannot be redrawn with the intent of favoring a political party, incumbent state legislator or member of Congress.”
DeWine’s gripe with Ohio’s proposed “Citizens Not Politicians” plan is that it would, he says, require “proportionality”: That in turn would lead to splitting populations with common needs and interests (a given county, city, village or township) diluting a community’s Statehouse oomph.
Proportionality is a $5 word that means the percentage of Ohio General Assembly seats that political party wins should roughly match that party’s share of Ohio’s statewide vote.
Example: In 2020, Republican Donald Trump drew about 53% of Ohio’s vote. Theoretically, “proportionality” would seemingly require that 53% (or 52) of Ohio’s 99 state House districts favor Republicans. (Instead, under now-GOP-drawn districts, Republicans hold 67 of the House’s seats and 27 seats in the 33-seat Ohio Senate.)
Current results, in Iowa, of the Iowa plan that DeWine applauded: In 2020, Donald Trump drew 53% of Iowa’s statewide presidential vote.
Current makeup of the Iowa General Assembly: Iowa House, 64% Republican; Iowa Senate, 68% Republican. That’s fair?
As for splitting communities, the Ohio General Assembly, as now districted, and run for almost a generation with districts supposedly more sensitive to local needs than “Citizens Not Politicians” would allow, has repeatedly thumbed its nose at constitutionally guaranteed city and village home rule in Ohio, regardless of whether district lines split South Succotash (to borrow Ronald Reagan’s snarky term for America’s hamlets) or any other Ohio crossroads.
As for DeWine’s timing – to get an Iowa-type plan through the General Assembly by Aug. 7, deadline for placing the measure on November’s ballot – he hinted that while he likely could nudge the Ohio Senate to submit it to voters, the House (run by a coalition of GOP rebels and the House’s Democratic minority) would’ve stymied him.
If, next year, the General Assembly doesn’t pass an Iowa-style districting set-up, DeWine vowed he’d lead a petition drive to put it on the ballot. There’s no reason to doubt his sincerity, although DeWine voted for the General Assembly’s current, gerrymandered, districts.
And the governor is on record as saying politicians shouldn’t be the deciders in drawing Ohio’s congressional and General Assembly districts. But Iowa’s plan requires its General Assembly to OK proposed districts, making Iowa’s incumbent legislators decisive.
Maybe that can work in a state whose political culture doesn’t feature brass knuckles. But Ohio’s does.
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Ohio Democrats are walking with a spring in their steps thanks to the surge of enthusiasm for Vice President Kamala Harris, Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee.
It’s unlikely Ohio will cast its electoral votes for Harris rather than Republican presidential nominee Trump, but the excitement Harris stokes could drive up Democratic turnout in Ohio in November. That’d likely boost support for the re-election campaign of Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Cleveland Democrat challenged by the GOP nominee, Bernie Moreno, a successful Greater Cleveland entrepreneur.
Brown, elected to the Senate in 2006, earlier Ohio’s secretary of state, and a U.S. House member, is seeking his fourth Senate term.
Meanwhile, Trump’s vice-presidential running mate, Sen. JD (James David) Vance, a Cincinnati Republican, has had a rough debut in his new national role. It’s foolish to discount Vance’s resume. But he’s about to learn, if he hasn’t already, that anything Donald Trump touches, he damages.
Read the full piece here.