Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s office has prepared ballot text for the Ohio Ballot Board to consider Friday that supporters of the anti-gerrymandering amendment say is misleading and unconstitutional. The Ballot Board decides the language of proposed amendments that voters actually see on their ballots when they vote.
The anti-gerrymandering amendment that will be put before Ohio voters in November, according to language put forth by LaRose’s office, “will deprive Ohioans of their long-standing ability to hold their representatives accountable for drawing fair districts for state legislature and congressional elections.”
The group Citizens Not Politicians, which authored the referendum initiative and collected the more than 535,000 Ohio voter signatures required to place the initiative on the ballot, also proposed its own ballot language, saying it would exclude politicians from the redistricting process in favor of a citizens’ council.
The group is proposing a redistricting amendment that would replace the Ohio district commission run by politicians with a citizen-run commission made up of Republicans, Democrats and independents. Currently, the Ohio Secretary of State is one of the politicians serving on the Ohio district commission, along with the governor, the Ohio auditor, two lawmakers from the majority party and two lawmakers from the minority party.
In the text developed by the Office of the Secretary of State in its proposed title, the amendment states that its purpose is “to create an appointed redistricting commission which shall not be elected by, nor be subject to recall by, the voters of this State.”
Moreover, the bill states that its purpose is to “repeal constitutional protections against gerrymandering approved by nearly three-quarters of Ohio’s electors in the 2015 and 2018 state elections.”
Supporters of the amendment argue that its real purpose is to protect voters from gerrymandering by removing politicians who might benefit from the process and preventing them from continuing to draw gerrymandered district maps.
After the 2015 and 2018 reforms were passed by voters, Republican politicians on the Ohio Redistricting Commission, including Ohio Secretary of State LaRose, repeatedly voted for statehouse and U.S. Congressional district maps that were ruled unconstitutional by a bipartisan majority on the Ohio Supreme Court. Nevertheless, Ohio voters were forced to employ the maps because the politicians refused to produce maps that reflected the voting preferences of Ohioans.
The Ohio Secretary of State’s office further argues in its proposed language that the recent amendment “would also restrict the right of Ohioans to freely express their views to commission members or commission staff regarding the redistricting process or proposed redistricting plans.”
It is claimed that the amendment would “prohibit a citizen from filing a lawsuit challenging a redistricting plan in any court except where the lawsuit challenges the standard of proportionality applied by the commission, and then only in the Ohio Supreme Court” and that recent “taxpayer-funded costs” would be imposed by the amendment, with “an unlimited amount for the commission’s legal expenses in connection with any related litigation.”
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine recently publicly opposed the ballot measure because of its emphasis on proportionality, saying there was no way the measure would work as written. In opposing the measure, he said that regardless of whether it passes in November, he was considering going to the Legislature to bring Iowa’s redistricting process in line with Ohio’s. Iowa’s process leaves lawmakers with the final say on maps.
The proposed constitutional amendment, filed by Citizens Not Politicians, would establish a 15-member redistricting commission that would be comprised of citizens, rather than the current Ohio Redistricting Commission, which is made up solely of elected officials.
The text proposed by Citizens Not Politicians to the Election Commission states that the proposed amendment “would require the commission to be composed of 15 members who have demonstrated the absence of any disqualifying conflicts of interest and who have demonstrated the ability to conduct the redistricting process in an impartial, fair, and equitable manner.”
As proposed by Citizens Not Politicians, the amendment would “provide that any redistricting plan should contain single-member districts that are geographically contiguous, consistent with federal law, closely reflect the state party preferences of Ohio voters, and protect communities.”
The current Ohio Redistricting Commission, made up of politicians, has produced six different Statehouse maps and two congressional maps in its two years of operation. Five of the Statehouse maps have been deemed unconstitutional by the Ohio Supreme Court, and none of the congressional maps have passed constitutional muster, according to the state’s highest court. The other congressional map remains the state’s congressional district map, despite being deemed excessively partisan by the state Supreme Court.
The redistricting commission has been criticized for ignoring hours of testimony from hundreds of Ohioans and numerous maps proposed by citizens and groups in favor of maps drawn by legislative staff. The commission also ignored the authority of the Ohio Supreme Court, which ordered it to redraw the maps by a deadline and employ the services of independent cartographers coordinated by the court.
Former Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, a leader of the Citizens Not Politicians movement who has been calling for redistricting reform since leaving office, said the Secretary of State’s proposed language violates the Ohio Constitution.
“The selfish politicians who rigged the legislative maps now seek to rig the November 5 election by illegally manipulating the language on the ballot,” O’Connor said in a statement. “We will defend fair and accurate language before the Board of Elections and, if necessary, in court.”
O’Connor’s statement said the language proposed by the Secretary of State’s Office violates a section of the Ohio Constitution that prohibits the employ of language on ballots that “is likely to mislead, deceive, or extort money from voters.” in accordance with the law.
Ohio law also states that ballot titles “must contain a true and impartial statement of the measures, couched in such a manner that the ballot title may not be likely to bias the measure in favor or against it.”
This isn’t the first time, even last year, that ballot language has been criticized as misleading in its portrayal of a proposed initiative. Last year’s reproductive rights ballot went through the same process, with language written by the Ohio Secretary of State’s staff being approved as the language to appear on the ballot.
The appeals bill’s creators sued, and the Ohio Supreme Court upheld the bill’s language but sent it back to the board for minor changes.
Despite language that critics said deliberately distorted the Reproductive Rights Amendment, the bill passed with 57% of the vote last November.
Secretary of State LaRose is the chairman of the Ohio Ballot Board, which will consider the language Friday. The board also includes Republican state Sen. Theresa Gavarone, Democratic state Sen. Paula Hicks-Hudson, Democratic state Rep. Terrence Upchurch and citizen-member William Morgan.
A spokesman for the Secretary of State’s Office did not respond to a request for comment on the wording of the document Thursday afternoon.
