As promised, anti-gerrymandering advocates have asked the Ohio Supreme Court to intervene in a provision the Ohio Ballot Board approved for the November election, arguing that the provision violates the Ohio Constitution.
Abstract submitted on Monday The state’s highest court is citing constitutional provisions that govern how titles and phrases can appear on Ohio ballots, according to a court document written by attorneys for Citizens Not Politicians, which sponsored the redistricting reform bill.
“In November, Ohio voters will be asked to consider a proposed constitutional amendment that would take away politicians’ redistricting powers and give them to a citizens’ redistricting commission,” wrote attorney Don McTigue. “The politicians are defending themselves with an absolute barrage of falsehoods.”
McTigue called the language approved by the commission “the most biased, inaccurate, misleading and unconstitutional ballot language ever adopted by the Ohio Ballot Board.”
The Board approved the text that will be the summary of the newly released issue 1 by a vote of 3-2 at its meeting on August 16, with Ohio Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose, Republican State Senator Theresa Gavarone and Citizen Representative William N. Morgan voting for the language.
The proposed amendment would replace the current Ohio Redistricting Commission, made up of politicians including the governor, secretary of state, auditor and two legislators from each party, with a 15-member citizens’ commission made up of an equal number of Republicans, Democrats and independents who hold no elected office or have no political affiliations.
According to Voting language approved by the division council — which LaRose, the board’s chairman, said at the meeting, which he organized with the lend a hand of his staff — the redistricting initiative would “repeal constitutional protections against gerrymandering” and “eliminate the long-standing ability of Ohioans to hold their representatives accountable for drawing fair districts for legislative and congressional elections.”
At the last minute, during the board meeting, Gavarone changed LaRose’s wording, replacing the word “manipulate” in the paragraph about redistricting with the word “manipulate,” which instead states that the novel commission is obligated to gerrymander the boundaries of legislative and congressional districts. This change was supported at the meeting by LaRose and board member William Morgan.
“That’s quite the opposite,” McTigue responded in a Citizens Not Politicians court filing. “In fact, the amendment would ‘prohibit partisan gerrymandering and prohibit redistricting plans that favor one political party and disfavor others.’”
McTigue said the summary’s language contains “numerous, serious errors” and includes “campaign rhetoric designed to persuade — not unbiased, factual information designed to inform voters.”
Citizens, not politicians, wasted no time after the Ohio Ballot Board approved the LaRose-written measure and vowed to challenge it in court. Former Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor called the approval and the events leading up to it “one abhorrent abuse of power after another by politicians desperate to protect the current system that benefits only themselves and their friendly lobbyists.”
“Secretary of State Frank LaRose has voted seven times for maps that courts have found to be unconstitutional, and this week he is violating the Constitution by objectively rigging the ballot,” O’Connor said in a statement.
LaRose was a member of the Ohio Redistricting Commission when it adopted six Statehouse district maps and two congressional maps during the group’s two years of work. Of those maps, five Statehouse maps and both congressional maps were found by the Ohio Supreme Court to be unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering.
Ohio law requires that ballot titles be “a true and impartial statement of the measure, so framed that the ballot title may not be likely to bias the measure in favor or against it.”
The language presented to voters is also regulated by Ohio law, with the constitution stating that the full text of the amendment is not required, but the language used cannot be such as to “mislead, deceive, or defraud the voters.”
“Whether the amendment is good policy is for the people of Ohio to decide — not the Voting Board — and it is not a matter for the court to litigate,” McTigue wrote in a Monday brief. “The Voting Board’s duties are clear, the legal standards are well-defined, and the title and language of the court’s ballot measure flagrantly violate those standards.”
Last August, the state Supreme Court faced a similar case when supporters of a reproductive rights amendment that was on the ballot last November filed a lawsuit challenging another summary judgment written by LaRose and staff which they thought was confusing.
Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights the Ohio Supreme Court asked order the Electoral Commission to operate the full text of the amendment or “correct glaring inaccuracies” and operate “language that fully, accurately, and impartially describes the scope and effects of the amendment.”
The Ohio Supreme Court ordered the election commission improve only one Among the many issues raised by defense attorneys was a paragraph in which the election commission used the phrase “citizens of the State of Ohio” instead of “State of Ohio.”
Despite this, the abortion amendment was passed by 57% of the vote.
Regardless of what electoral district provision appears on the ballot in this year’s election, the full text of the amendment itself remains in the same language, whose authors are Citizens, not Politicians and supported by over 535,000 voters in Ohio who participated in the signature campaign that allowed the measure to be placed on the ballot in the November general election. The Electoral Commission’s summary does not change the actual anti-gerrymandering amendment proposed.
