COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Republican governor of Ohio. Mike DeWine said Wednesday that he will work to defeat a fall voting question aims to remake the state’s troubled political cartography system and, if approved, work with state lawmakers next year to advance a competing amendment based on the Iowa model.
In a press conference filled with corroborating images, DeWine asserted that the rules laid out in the Citizens, Not Politicians amendment would divide communities and require outcomes that fit the “classic definition of gerrymandering.” He specifically pointed to the proposal’s requirement for party proportionality in maps.
“Now, the idea of proportionality seems fair,” he said. “Yet we see that requiring the map drawer to draw districts, each of which favors one political party, with each district having a predetermined party advantage, and requiring a certain number of the districts to favor each party, obliterates all other good government objectives. They all leave.”
DeWine said Iowa’s system — in which mapmakers are prohibited from looking at past election results or protecting individual lawmakers — would remove politics from the process.
Supporters of Ohio’s fall ballot measure disagreed, pointing out that Iowa lawmakers have the final say over political district maps in that state — the exact scenario Ohio’s plan was designed to avoid. This happened after Ohio’s existing system, involving the state Legislature and a state redistricting commission made up of elected officials including DeWine, produced seven rounds of legislative and congressional maps rejected by the courts as unconstitutional.
“This is the same tired playbook as in Ohio,” said John Bisognano, president of All On The Line, a Democratic-backed national anti-gerrymandering group that is involved in the campaign. “Given that Ohio politicians have repeatedly ignored well-intentioned reforms to come to power, the Iowa model simply will not work in the Buckeye State. Any proposal that would allow manipulative politicians to hold the pen to draw the maps or change the rules is unacceptable to Ohioans.
The fall ballot proposal calls for replacing the Ohio Redistricting Commission, made up of the governor, auditor, secretary of state and the four legislative leaders, with an independent body selected directly by citizens. Members of the new panel would be diverse by party affiliation and geography.
During the protracted process of redrawing district boundaries to account for the 2020 Census results, challenges filed in court resulted in the rejection of two Congressional maps and five sets of Statehouse maps as being unconstitutionally gerrymandered.
DeWine argued that it is less important who draws the maps than what criteria the state constitution requires them to meet. He said he will work with the Legislature in January to present Iowa’s plan to voters, and if lawmakers fail, he would even consider working to put it on the state ballot by initiative.
Asked why he chose not to call an immediate special session to address the issue, as he did recently to resolve a voting deadline problem affecting the presidential race, DeWine said the strategy lacked support in the Politically Fractured Ohio House.
A new session begins in January. It’s possible that by then, Republican Senate President Matt Huffman — who spoke out against the fall redistricting measure — will have succeeded. his effort to return to the House and win the speaker’s seat away from fellow Republican Jason Stephens. Stephens, whose tenure relied heavily on Democratsfailed to deliver on several of DeWine’s legislative priorities this session.
