Ohio Republican Governor Mike DeWine. (Photo by Graham Stokes for Ohio Capital Journal / Repost photo with original story only.)
Ohio is almost halfway to the next constitutional deadline for congressional redistricting, and so far there has been no public movement to reconvene the Ohio Redistricting Commission.
Majority leaders in the Ohio House and Senate say they are waiting for word from the governor about the committee meeting, and Democrats say they are not aware of any updates.
Last week at a press conference announcing the executive order on narcotic cannabis, Gov. Mike DeWine was asked when the redistricting commission would meet and simply replied “soon.”
“Well, we know what the law is, it will have to happen this month,” DeWine said. “We know this will happen.”
Because the General Meeting did not adopt the congressional district map before the end of September, the state constitution stipulates that the next deadline will be October 31.
That deadline is up to the ORC, which must hold public meetings and develop a map that has bipartisan support by then.
The Legislature is required to redraw the congressional map that draws the boundaries of Ohio’s House and Senate districts for employ in the next election and beyond.
The redrawing is required under the Constitution because lawmakers were unable to gain bipartisan support for the last set of maps adopted by Republicans at the redistricting commission in March 2022.
Supreme Court of Ohio declared the current map unconstitutional, But the federal court did not intervene in congressional map challenges.
Separate court challenge to map was removed by anti-gerrymandering advocates it seemed like it would be a ballot initiative for redistricting reform and another round of map drawing would happen before the issue could be decided.
Lawmakers who chaired the joint committee on congressional redistricting last month have resisted calls that a map proposal be required by the constitutional deadline in September.
State Rep. Adam Bird, D-New Richmond, insisted that the September deadline is one of many in the Constitution and therefore does not legally bind the Legislature on a specific date.
“We have a deadline of September 30, and yet the constitution provides a procedure if we don’t meet it,” Bird said at the council’s first meeting joint committee on September 22.
At the committee’s second and final meeting before the first deadline, Bird maintained the message that “we still have a few months and we still have time to talk further.”
Legislative Democrats proposed a map in September with eight Republican-leaning districts and seven Democratic-leaning districts.
Minority party leaders said the proposal was intended as a starting point for discussions on redistricting in hopes of adding urgency to the process.
The current map consists of 10 Republican districts and three Democratic districts.
Although the joint committee heard hours of support for the Democratic proposal, with only one person speaking against it during public hearings, no vote took place on the Democratic map.
Asked about progress on the Republican proposal, Bird said he didn’t know the map as of Sept. 30.
Both Ohio House GOP and Ohio Senate GOP staffers said they did not yet have updates on the redistricting process, as did minority staffers in the House and Senate.
House Minority Communications Director David Meyers said no specific information has been provided on when the commission’s start date has been set, and Casey Rife, Senate Democrats’ communications director, said the caucus “hopes to get to work as soon as possible.”
If the Ohio Redistricting Commission is unable to reach an agreement on the map, the process returns to the Legislature with a Nov. 30 deadline.
If the process returns to the General Assembly, different rules apply and the map would only require a basic majority to pass.
Megan Henry contributed to this article.
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