Global Courant
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio’s political map commission unanimously approved new Statehouse maps Tuesday evening, moving a step closer to resolving a long-running redistricting battle.
The States long saga about the new political boundaries that must be drawn after every U.S. census has been riddled with lawsuits and repeated court rulings finding that previous maps were unconstitutionally gerrymandered to favor the state’s leading Republicans.
The new state House and Senate maps are poised to last into the 2030 election cycle, pending legal hurdles, and, like their predecessors, will give the Republican Party a statewide advantage.
Under the plan, Republicans would have an advantage in about 62% of the seats in the House of Representatives and 70% of the seats in the Senate. In contrast, the state’s partisan breakdown, averaged over the period from 2012 to 2020, was approximately 54% Republican and 46% Democratic. Republicans currently hold a supermajority in each of the state legislative chambers.
Sen. Rob McColley, a Henry County Republican who served on the Ohio Redistricting Commission, said in a statement that the vote proved that bipartisan “good faith negotiations” in the redistricting process produce results, and that he is “very pleased” with that Results. .
The final maps give Democrats more competitive seats than initially proposed at the start of the latest round of redistricting negotiations last week — negotiations that got off to a slow start after a 16-month hiatus, thanks Republican power struggles above the leadership of the committee.
However, the two Democrats on the seven-member committee seemed to see this less as a victory and more as a necessary compromise.
“We have collectively produced better, fairer maps,” Nickie Antonio, co-chair of the Senate Minorities Committee, said in a news release. “However, this cycle of redistricting has made it clear that this process does not belong in the hands of politicians.”
Antonio’s statement comes amid plans to convert a constitutional amendment Next year’s ballot will create a citizen-led commission to replace the current Redistricting Commission, which consists of three statewide elected officials and four state legislators. Former Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, who retired last year, is helping the organization, which calls itself Citizens Not Politicians.
The amendment would replace the current commission with a 15-member, citizen-led commission made up of Republicans, Democrats and independents.
O’Connor, a Republican who cast a series of key votes against last year’s maps, said in a statement that confidence among both Democrats and Republicans has been lost because of the compromise.
“What happened last night has real consequences: when maps are gerrymandered to protect politicians, it means citizens cannot hold their politicians accountable,” O’Connor said in a statement.
Ohio is one of more than two dozen states where redistricting efforts following the 2020 census are still in question, either because of ongoing lawsuits or efforts to redraw districts.
___
Samantha Hendrickson is a staff member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
