Ohio Governor Mike DeWine still believes changes to the state’s redistricting process would be beneficial and plans to urge the Legislature to pursue a plan similar to this one used by Iowawhere nonpartisan staff draw the lines, but the maps are approved by lawmakers.
In remarks to reporters Thursday, DeWine stood by a view he first made in July, when he publicly opposed redistricting reform in the general election’s No. 1: The current system isn’t working, and the system used in Iowa would need to be changed.
“I think it’s very appropriate for the Legislature to start looking at this again,” DeWine said during a breakfast for the Ohio Legislative Correspondents’ Association.
Current method
DeWine was part of the current Ohio Redistricting Commission and was one of five Republican elected officials on that commission, along with two Democratic elected officials.
During his time on the Commission, the group adopted six versions of Statehouse district maps and two congressional district maps. Five Statehouse maps were found unconstitutional by the Ohio Supreme Court, and both congressional district maps were thrown out by the court for the same reason.
The sixth version of the Statehouse maps was the only one approved with bipartisan support, which Democrats on the committee said was intended to take the commission out of the mapmaking process and avoid Republicans from drawing even more Gerry-rigged maps and passing them on a party-line vote.
Bipartisan support was the reason given by the Ohio Supreme Court, which upheld the map in a court challenge.
The commission’s composition and methods have been criticized throughout much of the more than two years it spent drawing the maps, with voting rights groups and hundreds of other Ohioans speaking out at public hearings about the lack of transparency in the mapping process and the lack of accountability from commissioners, even when state Supreme Court justices considered censuring them for missing deadlines and disobeying court orders.
Commission leaders and members opposed court orders and deadlines, publicly challenging the court’s redistricting authority and rejecting the concept of deadlines.
ORC member and future Speaker of the House Matt Huffman even took Ohio’s redistricting problems to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking for a ruling based on a century-old legal theory that holds that all election-related powers, including redistricting , belong to the legislature. That effort was rejected by the country’s highest court.
Edition 1
After watching the redistricting commission move toward resolution, voting rights advocates and the former chief justice who served on the swing vote that led to the rejection of so many of the commission’s maps have seen enough.
Citizens Not Politicians was formed to rewrite the Ohio Constitution’s redistricting provisions (established in two other ballot initiatives in 2015 and 2018), take the commission out of play, and seek to create an independent, citizen-led, elected commission by judges and is composed of an equal number of Republicans, Democrats and independent Ohioans.
The campaign collected many more signatures needed to put the proposed amendment on the ballot last November, but it also drew opposition from some of Ohio’s top leaders, including DeWine, Huffman and Secretary of State Frank LaRose, also a member of the Ohio Redistricting Commission.
After a tense and costly campaign, a majority of Ohioans voted to keep the current system, rejecting the proposal by a nearly 55% vote. Citizens Not Politicians leaders theorized that some Ohioans who voted “no” were confused enough about the issue that they believed they voted for the citizen-led commission.
This came after Republicans on the Ohio Board of Elections placed a summary of the amendment on the ballot for voters who argued the amendment would require gerrymandering.
The future of redistricting in Ohio
As he sees another ballot initiative pass, DeWine would prefer to see further changes made legislatively.
“I think the advantage of the Legislature doing it instead of putting something on the ballot is the opportunity to come and testify before the Legislature,” DeWine said.
He said this legislative change should be modeled after Iowa’s redistricting process, a process that has been in place for four decades but not without changes.
When DeWine first mentioned the Iowa plan, he promised to push the Ohio General Assembly on the issue whether Issue 1 passes in November or not.
His argument for the plan rests largely on the fact that mapmakers are “prohibited from looking at past voting patterns and voter registration,” he told reporters Thursday.
“I feel like (Iowa’s plan) eliminates politics,” DeWine said. “It also places an emphasis on bridging political divides.”
The Iowa process uses a nonpartisan General Assembly agency, similar to the Ohio Legislative Service Commission, as the authors of the maps, which are then submitted to legislative and gubernatorial bodies for approval, according to legislative guide on the Iowa set.
Once the map was submitted to the General Assembly, it would require at least three hearings in different areas of the state, as well as a report of the hearings.
A map that is not approved must include specific reasons for rejection, and the impartial agency has 35 days to amend or replace the plan. A second plan is not required to obtain public hearings, and if a third plan is needed, changes can be made directly by lawmakers, under Iowa law.
If the third plan is not agreed to, or if legal challenges arise if the state supreme court is named as the authority on the map’s validity, it will seek judicial intervention.
While DeWine touts the longevity of the Iowa plan, he said he’s not “attached to every word” and realizes that beyond the number of letters in the name, Iowa and Ohio are very different states.
“I hope (the Ohio Legislature) will start with this and have a public discussion and people will come out and say they like it or maybe they don’t like it. This is what they want them to change,” DeWine said. “But this is where the legislator must start.”
He’s not worried that motivation will be a factor in the GOP majority, which is largely protected in current maps and will constitute a majority on the Ohio Redistricting Commission if it remains in place.
“I suppose someone will always have the majority,” DeWine said. “But eventually these things change.”
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