The good news from the Statehouse last week was that Ohioans will get a chance this November to require fairly drawn General Assembly districts by wresting “apportionment” power from political insiders.
The “Citizens Not Politicians” plan has been proposed by the petition signatures of 535,005 registered Ohio voters – almost 121,000 more (or 29%) than the required minimum.
The constitutional amendment (key backers include retired Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, a Greater Cleveland Republican) would create a 15-member Ohio Citizens Redistricting Commission to draw Ohio General Assembly and Ohio’s U.S. House of Representative districts.
The commission would be composed of a mix of Democrats, independents and Republicans, excluding current or former politicians and lobbyists. At least seven other states have similar commissions, including neighboring Michigan.
As things now stand, partisan hacks draw Ohio House and Senate districts to favor the politicians – since 1991, Republicans – who control “districting,” as it’s known. Brazen consequences:
In 2020, Republican Donald Trump carried Ohio, attracting 53% of the statewide vote, to the 45% drawn by Democrat Joseph R. Biden Jr. Consider the contrast between Trump’s Ohio margin with the margins Republicans enjoy in the two chambers of the Ohio legislature, thanks to rigged districts:
In the 99-seat Ohio House of Representatives, the GOP holds 68% of the House’s 99 seats (that is, 67 seats). And in the 33-seat Ohio Senate, Republicans hold 79% of its seats (that is, 26 seats).
And that pattern, with Republicans capturing big majorities of General Assembly seats, dates back to the 1990s, when the GOP gained control of districting. (Yet, Democrat presidential candidate Bill Clinton carried Ohio in 1992 and 1996, as did fellow Democrat Barack Obama, in 2008 and 2012.)
Of course, there’s “what-about-ism” about district-drawings in 1971 and 1981 controlled by Democrats, led by 20-year House Speake Vernal G. Riffe Jr., of Appalachian Ohio’s Scioto County. Over those 20 years, Democrats maxed out at 62 state House seats in 1977 through 1980 (in the wake of Democrat Jimmy Carter’s 1976 Ohio victory) and in 1983-1984 (after Greater Cleveland Democrat Richard F. Celeste won the governorship, and amid Ronald Reagan 1982 recession, which hit Ohio so hard).
But even with General Assembly districts then drawn by Democrats, Republicans captured the state Senate in November 1984, and have controlled it ever since, possibly an Ohio record for one-party rule of either General Assembly chamber.
The Republican rationale for gerrymandering (“alibi” may be the better word) is that it’s impossible to divide Ohio into 99 House districts (about 119,000 residents each) or 33 Senate districts (about 358,000 residents each) to match statewide voter results (as noted for 2020, 53% for Trump, 45% for Biden).
True enough, it’d be a challenge to scare up enough Republicans in Franklin County (65% for Biden) or Cuyahoga (67% for Biden) neighborhoods to create General Assembly districts in those counties proportionate to the statewide GOP presidential tally (53% Trump). The same goes for creating Democratic proportionate (45% Biden) districts in western- or north-central Ohio, where Trump racked up such mammoth 2020 tallies as 82% in Mercer (Celina) and Putnam (Ottawa) counties (both, incidentally, heavily Catholic).
Still, if Riffe’s two apportionments could find Democratic voters in parts of counties such as Brown, in southwest Ohio (54% for Reagan in 1980); Marion, in central Ohio (57%); Sandusky, in lake shore Ohio (56%); and, just east of Indiana, Shelby (54%,), then the GOP insiders who drew Ohio’s current districts, with vastly superior computers, could have done so, too – if they had wanted – instead of portraying themselves as hostages to geography.
These factors demonstrate why the “Citizens Not Politicians” ballot issue offers Ohio voters the opportunity to break Statehouse insiders’ lock on the General Assembly, a body that’s supposed to represent all Ohioans, not a few self-selected Statehouse wire-pullers.
What’s more, concentrating voters of one party in a given legislative district tends to make party primaries, not November’s general elections, decisive in picking a General Assembly. And Republican primary fights in Ohio can turn on which contender is furthest to the right, determined in part by how much kook legislation – of which there’s way too much already – gets hyped at the Statehouse.
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