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Tag: gerrymandered districts

  • Voices across Ohio: The battle over Issue One and fair districts

    Voices across Ohio: The battle over Issue One and fair districts

    (Alejandro Bernal/Adobe Stock)
    October 31, 2024 – Farah Siddiqi, Public News Service (OH)

     

    In Ohio, the debate over Issue One has stirred strong emotions among residents and community leaders.

    For many, the proposal to establish a citizens’ redistricting commission transcends politics. It represents a push for fair representation.

    Marian Stewart, a retired pastor from Greene County, is a vocal supporter of the measure and frames the issue as a moral imperative.

    “Rigging the maps is not fair; it’s cheating,” Stewart asserted. “Disenfranchising voters and limiting accountability does not value or respect all of our voices. It’s just wrong. That’s why I joined with faith leaders across Ohio in voting yes on Issue One.”

    Stewart’s words echoed the concerns of many Ohioans who believe gerrymandered districts limit the political voice of everyday citizens. Proponents argued Issue One will ensure a fairer process by empowering a bipartisan citizens’ commission to draw electoral maps.

    Critics of the measure, including some conservative groups, countered it could introduce new forms of political bias into redistricting. The opposing group had the language of the ballot issue changed to include the word “gerrymander.”

    For advocates of Ohio’s labor community, the proposal is about ensuring working people’s interests are not drowned out by political manipulation.

    Ted Linscott, president of the Southeast Ohio Central Labor Council, described how unfair districts can sideline Ohio’s working-class voices.

    “Working people need fair voting districts so their voices can be heard,” Linscott contended. “Workers don’t need extreme right or left. We need fairness.”

    The League of Women Voters of Ohio has been advocating for anti-gerrymandering reforms since 1981, underscoring the need for a responsive government.

    Jen Miller, the group’s executive director, views Issue One as an important step toward accountability, noting the first initiative had support from the Ohio Republican Party but was opposed by Democrats, who held power at the time.

    “The first thing that mappers did was look at the addresses of their favorite candidates and incumbents and draw lines around them, rather than drawing districts that keep communities together and make sure that Ohioans have meaningful elections,” Miller pointed out.

    Ohio’s Issue One has drawn support from a diverse coalition, including labor unions, faith leaders and civic organizations, all advocating for a more representative government. As voters head to the polls, they are faced with a question beyond party lines: Should Ohio’s electoral districts be shaped by politicians or by the people they serve?

  • COMMENTARY: Ohio’s true state of the state: Relentless misrepresentation, extremism and corruption

    COMMENTARY: Ohio’s true state of the state: Relentless misrepresentation, extremism and corruption

    David DeWitt

    Meanwhile, Ohio ranks in the bottom half of all states on education, economy, environment, infrastructure, and health care.

    by David DeWitt

    You wouldn’t know it from Gov. Mike DeWine’s State of the State Wednesday, but Ohioans are currently suffering under a state government captured by corruption and yoked to extremist lawmakers racked with dysfunction and intent on little more than imposing radical ideology from the safety of unconstitutionally gerrymandered districts.

    Sweetheart Republican special interests often get everything they ask for in Ohio, while community advocates fighting every day to obtain proven policy solutions that improve the lives of Ohioans get largely ignored. Wealthy families and corporations continue to do phenomenally in the Buckeye State while millions get left behind, or outright attacked.

    Back in 2010, Ohio was ranked by Education Week as having the 5th best public school system in the nation. Education Week’s last ranking was in 2021 and put Ohio at No. 20. A recent ranking from U.S. News & World Report puts Ohio education at No. 29. If you break those numbers down, Ohio sits at No. 21 for Pre-K to 12 education, and No. 37 for higher education.

    State disinvestment from higher education is one of the primary drivers of our country’s vastly over-inflated higher education costs and subsequent record student loan debt.

    The National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics calculated state support for higher education per full-time student in 2021. Ohio ranked No. 40 in the amount of money we provide to fund higher education, giving about $5,600 per student compared to a national average of nearly $8,000.

    So are gerrymandered Ohio lawmakers thinking of how they can help better support our storied and cherished institutions of higher learning as they grapple with enrollment declines and right-sizing? No. They are attacking them. They are attacking freedom of speech and expression in the classroom, and any efforts toward diversity on campuses.

    They’ve proposed and then walked back their ultimate desire to attack tenure and collective bargaining, and in accordance with their own weird preoccupations, they also want to force transgender people on campus to use restrooms that do not match their gender identity and appearance.

    The Ohio Attorney General’s Office has meanwhile put the fear into Ohio colleges over awarding any diversity scholarships. Our student loan debt at college graduation is higher than the national average, and our high school graduation rate is below the national average.

    Regarding K-12, Ohio was giving out $69 million worth of private school vouchers in 2008. In 2023, gerrymandered Ohio lawmakers imposed near-universal private school voucher eligibility. This year, Ohio public funding of private school vouchers is on track to be more than $1 billion by June.

    Who is all the new voucher money going to? Mostly to families whose children were already attending private school. As for the 90% of Ohio K-12 students who attend public school, many are in cash-strapped districts facing budget cuts.

    Ohio doesn’t fare much better in any of the other rankings by U.S. News & World Report. Overall, it puts us at No. 34.

    Ohio ranks No. 31 in crime and corrections; No. 37 in economy; No. 42 in natural environment; No. 32 in infrastructure; and No. 29 in health care.

    Take heart though, Ohio is sitting on $3.5 billion in the state’s rainy day fund and ranks No. 14 in fiscal responsibility. But don’t go counting those chickens just yet. Gerrymandered Ohio lawmakers want to end state income taxes, which would leave a $13 billion state budget deficit.

    They say they could make up the money by raising the sales tax, cutting spending, and letting the economy allegedly “fix itself.” In other words, the rich get richer while everybody else pays a higher percentage of our income for other taxes and fees to make up the difference, and low-income families get their support services cut. This, in a state where 1 in 5 children already suffer food insecurity.

    But wait, what’s this? Ohio ranks No. 11 in “opportunity”? What’s that mean? Well, it’s not economic opportunity. For that we rank No. 35. But it is affordable to live in Ohio, so we grabbed a No. 16 ranking for that.

    Nevertheless, our median household income is below the national average and our poverty rate is above the national average. Ohio also has one of the worst infant mortality rates in the country, and ranks No. 29 in income inequality, with the top 1% of Ohioans taking home nearly 16% of all of the income in the state.

    We often hear from our leaders about what a great place Ohio is to do business. Surely we have a top-notch ranking there then, right? No. We rank No. 29 in business environment, No. 34 in growth, and No. 42 in employment.

    We crack the top half of states on health care when it comes to access (No. 24) and quality (No. 23), but our public health is abysmal, coming in at No. 42. Our pollution ranking is also abysmal, at No. 45. Columbus even recently won the crown for most-polluted city in America. And even though gerrymandered lawmakers have now opened our beautiful state parks and lands to fracking, we still rank No. 35 on energy.

    The national average for renewable energy usage is 12.3%, and Ohio’s is 4.4%. We once had one of the robust commitments to alternative energy in the nation, but, if you’ll recall, that corrupt Ohio House Bill 6 law that DeWine signed same-day that was the product of a $60 million political bribery and money laundering scheme that awarded a $1.3 billion bailout to FirstEnergy and a couple of failing coal-fired plants? It also gutted the state’s renewable energy portfolio.

    Insult to injury, gerrymandered Ohio lawmakers and DeWine also stripped Ohio communities of home rule when it comes to fossil fuel rigs, but made sure local solar projects could be astroturfed and attacked into oblivion.

    This may all sound pretty bleak, because it is.

    But hey, buck up, Ohio. We may not be No. 1 in anything. (In fact, we don’t even crack the Top Ten in anything good.) But at the end of the day, at least we can pick up our kids from one of our under-funded public schools or colleges, gather with our over-worked and under-paid family and friends, and get out in the sun to enjoy some pollution.

    We could picnic at one of our favorite state parks, and take in the soothing views of a fracking operation.

    “We’re No. 34! We’re No. 34!”

    _________________

    David DeWitt
    DAVID DEWITT

    Ohio Capital Journal Editor-in-Chief and Opinion Columnist David DeWitt has been covering government, politics, and policy in Ohio since 2007, including education, health care, crime and the courts, poverty, state and local government, business, labor, energy, the environment, and social issues. He has worked for the National Journal, The New York Observer, and The Athens NEWS. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Ohio University’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism and is a board member of the E.W. Scripps Society of Alumni and Friends. He can be found on X @DC_DeWitt

    Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

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  • Ohio politicians used redistricting for gerrymandered horse-trading. Kick them out of the process

    Ohio politicians used redistricting for gerrymandered horse-trading. Kick them out of the process

    COMMENTARY

    by David DeWitt

    It should be abundantly clear to all fair-minded Ohioans at this point that politicians have no business being involved in the redistricting process after lawmakers used the latest round of Ohio House and Senate district mapmaking to strike a bipartisan deal that amounts to little more than gerrymandered horse-trading.

    Fittingly under the cover of darkness late Tuesday night, Ohio Republican and Democratic politicians conducted a shrewd, self-serving negotiation to once again gerrymander Ohio’s Statehouse maps in behalf of their own short-term political power interests, instead of all working earnestly toward fair, representative maps.

    Ohio Democratic commissioners had a choice of whether to get whatever they could for now and hope voters pass reform, or to get raked by Republicans on the commission with worse maps than we have now, but this time likely destined to be rubber-stamped by a partisan right-wing Ohio Supreme Court. They chose the former.

    The Ohio Redistricting Commission’s bipartisan agreement among politicians show a Republican advantage of 61 to 38 in the Ohio House under the new map, with eight competitive Democratic toss-up seats and three competitive GOP toss-ups.

    In the Ohio Senate, the new map shows a 23 to 10 Republican advantage, with three competitive Republican toss-up seats and one competitive Democratic toss-up seat.

    Compare this to Ohio’s current unconstitutionally gerrymandered maps forced upon voters in 2022. Before the 2022 Election, the current gerrymandered districts showed a Republican advantage in 56 House seats. In the Ohio House, all 19 competitive districts under the current maps were Democratic, with zero competitive Republican districts.

    That meant that Democrats had to spend money and resources in 19 House districts and win every single one in order to maximize their House seats. Republicans didn’t have to “defend” a single seat, and could focus all of their money and resources on “pick-ups” — taking seats that lean Democratic on-paper.

    The Republicans’ unconstitutionally partisan mapmaking paid off. The 2022 Election saw Ohio Republicans winning 67 state House seats.

    In the Ohio Senate under the current maps, Republicans before the election looked to hold an edge in 18 Senate seats, and there were seven competitive toss-ups. Republicans ended up winning 26 Senate seats last November, while Democrats won seven seats total.

    So what are we looking at here with Tuesday night’s agreement among the bipartisan politicians?

    Democrats don’t have to spend the money and resources to defend nearly as many seats in the Ohio House. Instead of defending 19 seats, they will be defending eight seats and targeting three GOP seats. Essentially, their political resource management and allocation will be easier. Same thing in the Senate. They will be able to focus their resources on attempting to defend one seat and to pick up three GOP seats.

    Best case scenario for Democrats under the new maps: They pick-up six Senate seats total over their current number of seven, for a 20-13 Republican chamber; and/or they pick up nine seats total in the Ohio House over their current 32 seats by protecting their eight competitive seats and winning three GOP-leaning targets, for a 58-41 Republican chamber.

    That best case scenario for Democrats would break the GOP’s supermajorities; however, if Democrats were to not win the competitive Republican-leaning seats, the GOP would retain supermajorities of 61-38 in the Ohio House and 23-10 in the Ohio Senate.

    The best case scenario for Republicans would be not only to hold on to their supermajorities, but to win as many competitive Democratic-leaning districts as possible. If they were to defend their three competitive seats and win six out of the eight Dem-leaning competitive districts in the House, for instance, they would retain their current 67-32 advantage. Keep in mind that in 2022, they won 11 Dem-leaning competitive House seats.

    So by striking this deal on more gerrymandered maps, Democratic politicians gave themselves an easier time with money and resource allocation in 2024 and a very difficult but still possible shot to take away GOP supermajorities, and the GOP gave themselves a good chance to retain their supermajorities in both chambers while still having the opportunity to possibly expand them even further than the maps suggest now on-paper.

    But there’s more.

    Beyond this gerrymandered horse-trading on the Ohio House and Senate numbers, Democrats are indicating they are putting faith in the idea that the impact of gerrymandering lessens over time as the data used to draw the maps become outdated — so this deal prevents the GOP from both punishing Democrats severely right now, and from coming back for another redraw with fresh data to more efficiently gerrymander the maps again. Democrats also advocated Tuesday night for 2024 anti-gerrymandering reform, indicating they see this deal as a stop-gap measure before real reforms can take place thanks to voters.

    Republicans meanwhile have obtained a strong political cudgel to wield against that very effort to replace the Ohio Redistricting Commission made up of politicians with an Ohio Citizens Redistricting Commission that kicks the politicians out of the process. Republicans will say that the process worked, they obtained bipartisan agreement just as voters in 2015 intended with redistricting reform, that these maps are not gerrymandered, and in 2024, they’ll say something along the lines of, “Far-left special interests want to hijack the constitution and put power in the hands of unelected bureaucrats.”

    This process did not work.

    Redistricting in Ohio has been a two-year travesty with an ignominious conclusion for everyone involved, Republican and Democratic politicians alike.

    The prevailing motivation of every politician Tuesday night was shrewd political self-interest, not sacred obligation and duty to the public.

    No matter what anybody thinks of the advantages or disadvantages of the deal that was struck, it’s clear that these incentives for political horse-trading must be removed.

    The only incentive for mapmakers should be fair and representative maps that evenly maximize competitiveness.

    The way to remove these bad incentives to make these kind of damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t deals is to kick all of these politicians out of the process.

    Whether it’s partisan or bipartisan, gerrymandering must end. On Tuesday night in Ohio, it did not.

    David DeWitt
    DAVID DEWITT

    Ohio Capital Journal Editor-in-Chief and Columnist David DeWitt has been covering government, politics, and policy in Ohio since 2007, including education, health care, crime and courts, poverty, state and local government, business, labor, energy, environment, and social issues. He has worked for the National Journal, The New York Observer, The Athens NEWS, and Plunderbund.com. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Ohio University’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism and is a board member of the E.W. Scripps Society of Alumni and Friends. He can be found on Twitter @DC_DeWitt

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  • After a week of gun violence, House Republicans seek to expand concealed carry

    After a week of gun violence, House Republicans seek to expand concealed carry

    By Jake Zuckerman and Ohio Capital Journal

    Columbus, Ohio – After a spate of seven mass shootings around the U.S. in seven days, Ohio House Republicans introduced legislation that would allow Ohioans aged 21 and older to carry a concealed weapon without a license.

    House Bill 227, introduced Tuesday by Republican Reps. Thomas Brinkman and Kris Jordan and co-sponsored by 20 more, also contains other gun rights expansions including:

    • Removing the requirement that licensed gun owners “promptly” notify a police officer during a stop that they have a weapon in the car. They would only need to tell the officer about the weapon if asked.
    • Creating an expungement system for people previously convicted of concealed weapons offenses

    Under current law, Ohioans must seek licensure from their local sheriff to lawfully carry a concealed weapon. They must complete eight hours of firearms training and complete criminal background and mental competency checks.

    Only fifteen states allow residents to carry concealed weapons without permits, according to analysis from the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

    Constitutional carry bills like HB 227 have been introduced in every recent legislative session. However, gun advocates see this two-year session as critical, given it’s the last assembly comprised of members representing gerrymandered districts drawn on partisan lines that favor Republicans.

    “This is the session in which we need to pass a constitutional carry bill,” said Rob Sexton, legislative affairs director of Buckeye Firearms Association, discussing the bill and redistricting in a podcast last month.

    “This is the time to get it done.”

    The bill’s introduction comes on the heels of seven mass shootings (four or more killed or wounded) in seven days in the U.S., according to a CNN report.

    Ohio House Speaker Bob Cupp, R-Lima, declined to comment on the legislation while speaking to reporters Tuesday, saying he’s “reserving judgement” until he reads the bill. However, he generally affirmed his support for the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

    The legislation is likely to face staunch opposition from gun violence prevention advocates. Research from the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies in 2019 found that “right to carry” laws are associated with a 13% to 15% higher aggregate violent crime rate 10 years after adoption.

    Should the bill advance through the legislature, Gov. Mike DeWine could be a wildcard.

    After nine died and 27 were injured in a mass shooting in Dayton, he pushed for a comparatively modest set of gun control measures like increasing gun crime penalties and expanding a current legal mechanism allowing a judge to temporarily seize weapons from people with substance abuse or mental health problems.

    Lawmakers shelved the proposal and instead passed “stand your ground” legislation last year, removing the legal requirement to retreat before using deadly force in self-defense. DeWine repeatedly raised concerns with the bill, but unexpectedly signed it in the “spirit of cooperation” with lawmakers, he said at the time.

    DeWine spokesman Dan Tierney said the governor has not yet taken a position on the legislation.

    In 2004, Gov. Bob Taft signed Ohio’s constitutional carry program into law. Ohio Republicans expanded places where license holders can carry and decreased training requirements to obtain the license on multiple occasions since then.

    In 2020, more than 169,000 Ohioans were licensed to carry a concealed weapon. More than 400 licenses were revoked for causes including felony convictions and mental incompetence, according to a report from the attorney general.