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 more than 731,000 people — the proposed constitutional amendment will wrest away control of drawing the state’s congressional and legislative from Statehouse insiders, including DeWine.
A 15-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.
But DeWine 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 congressional and legislative districts and then win the legislature’s aproval. 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) and dilute 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.
Gerrymandering and hypocrisy has grown
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.)
As for splitting communities, the General Assembly, as now districted, and run for almost a generation with districts supposedly more sensitive to local needs, 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.
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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 fails to pass an Iowa-style districting plan, DeWine vowed he’d lead a petition drive to put such a plan on the ballot. There’s no reason to doubt his sincerity, although DeWine voted last fall for the General Assembly’s current, gerrymandered, districts.
Among other ironies, the governor is on record as saying politicians shouldn’t be the deciders in drawing Ohio’s congressional and General Assembly districts. But the Iowa plan, by requiring its General Assembly to approve proposed districts, makes incumbent legislators decisive.
Maybe that can work in a state whose political culture doesn’t feature brass knuckles. But Ohio’s does.