Issue 1 will end gerrymandering, returning power to Ohio’s voters
Voters should choose their elected leaders, not the other way around. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case in Ohio, one of the most gerrymandered states in the country, for quite a while. It’s time for that to finally change.
Ohio voters have the opportunity on or before Nov. 5 to seize back power from self-interested politicians by passing Issue 1.
The citizen-initiated referendum would remove elected Republicans and Democrats from drawing districts for seats in Congress, the Ohio House and Ohio Senate.
Instead, the constitutional amendment would create a balanced independent commission of citizens to fairly draw boundaries for 15 congressional districts, 33 state Senate districts and 99 state House districts.
Ohioans have given elected leaders plenty of chances to draw fair maps, but they’ve repeatedly failed to do so, defying the will of voters and thumbing their noses at rulings from the Ohio Supreme Court.
Voters must not let this moment to end Ohio’s legacy of gerrymandering slip by.
A history of stacking the deck
When it’s time to update political districts, Democratic and Republican lawmakers nationwide consistently show they’re more interested in protecting their seats and helping their party.
Here in Ohio, after Republicans lost control of the Ohio House in 2009 and 2010, they figured out how to use redistricting in 2011 to make it nearly impossible for Democrats to win again. They approved crazy maps with nonsensical districts generated by computer analysis of registered voters without regard for fairness.”
You may recall a thin Congressional district stretching from Toledo to Cleveland designed to minimize Democratic seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Rep. Jim Jordan’s Fourth Congressional District looked like a child’s drawing. Large and more liberal urban centers were sliced and diced into multiple districts to help Republicans.
This gerrymandering — the rigging of voting districts for your party — led citizens to threaten a constitutional amendment to reform the district drawing process. Lawmakers opted to negotiate their own amendments that voters approved in 2015 and 2018.
But lawmakers left themselves in charge of the process, an epic fatal flaw.
Ohio’s Republican leaders then largely ignored the agreed-upon process after the 2020 census, not to mention seven Ohio Supreme Court rulings declaring different maps to be unconstitutional.
Republicans, who drew their maps in secret, stalled for months until friendly federal judges allowed the current maps to be used, calling it “... the best of our bad options.”
The results, Republicans today hold 10 of our state’s 15 seats in Congress (67%) and supermajorities in the Ohio House (68%) and Ohio Senate (79%). We all know Ohio is not 67% or more Republican.
The legislature’s veto-proof super majorities also weaken the executive branch, as evidenced by Gov. Mike DeWine’s unsuccessful efforts to stop unnecessary culture war laws and efforts to weaken common-sense public health laws used during the pandemic.
Lawmakers don’t run state government despite what many of them apparently believe.
Issue 1 would distribute political power more equally across the branches of government, not to mention produce more competitive races.
What would Issue 1 accomplish?
Instead of allowing either Democrats or Republicans to control the redistricting process, a 15-member citizen commission would be created with five independents and five members each from the top two political parties, currently the Republicans and Democrats. Members couldn’t be elected officials, lobbyists or political consultants.
Retired judges would narrow down citizen applicants and randomly choose six of the 15 members. Then, those six would pick the remaining nine.
The commission would be required to comply with federal laws, including a ban on disenfranchising minority voters, create maps that closely correspond to recent statewide election results, not consider where current lawmakers live and keep “communities of interest” together.
Nine of the 15 votes, including two Republicans, two Democrats and two independents, would be needed to approve plans. If they can’t agree on a plan, each member would rank proposed maps from their most to least favorite. The least popular plan would be eliminated until only one plan remains.
It’s reasonable to wonder if it is even possible to find everyday citizens who are informed, engaged and detached enough from the political machine to serve on the commission. But we believe there are plenty of interested, fair-minded, pragmatic Ohioans who can fill that role.
It’s also worth noting that other states have adopted similar approaches to remove lawmakers from this process.
Ohio’s former chief justice backs Issue 1
Former Ohio Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, a respected jurist and Republican, ruled against her own party’s maps all seven times before a maximum age requirement forced her to retire.
She’s now dedicated the first two years of her retirement to supporting Issue 1.
“It is not designed to give one party or the other the majority,” O’Connor told our editorial board, explaining it will be highly unlikely for a super-majority of either party to be in power in the Ohio Legislature. “This amendment is by the people, and it is for a return of power to the people.”
O’Connor’s endorsement alone should be enough to convince you to vote yes.
Politicians can’t be trusted when their jobs are at stake
Power often corrupts people who suddenly find themselves in a position to protect or enrich themselves.
That’s especially true of politicians, who are increasingly behaving like zealots rather than statesmen.
“Politicians have several, you know, missions in their life,” O’Connor told us. “One is to retain their seat, the other is to put party over people and strengthen the party’s presence in government. If you can create a supermajority, all the better. And then that’s exactly what motivated the map drawers.”
Why would any employer (voters) give their employees (lawmakers) the power to enrich themselves without accountability? Democracy demands a reasonably fair playing field.
Issue 1 also stops Democrats from gerrymandering
Ohio Republicans are crying foul over this issue, but the day could come when Democrats again hold majority power in the Ohio Statehouse.
“This is not just a Republican issue, because when Democrats have the opportunity to gerrymander, they will do so in New York, Maryland, you know, other states,” O’Connor said.
It’s also true that current House Minority Leader Allison Russo, D-Columbus, eventually voted for the current map giving her an attractive district with no competitor this November.
Republicans are lying about Issue 1
The best proof that Issue 1 will work can be found in the false claims of Republicans, especially the ballot language that misrepresents the amendment. They even convinced the current Ohio Supreme Court to harm its credibility by allowing the wording.
We urge everyone to read the amendment’s actual wording.
Make no mistake, Issue 1 will end gerrymandering and remove self-serving politicians from the process. Neither party would control the maps.
It’s probably fair to say Issue 1 might create some unforeseen problems we don’t have now.
But those issues would pale in comparison to the broken system we are currently using.
If Michigan can make this work, so can Ohio. We heartily endorse Issue 1 as a critical step in reforming Ohio’s state government and attracting more moderate candidates to run in their party primaries with reasonable hopes of prevailing into a fair general election.
Vote yes. This editorial was written by Enquirer Opinion Editor Kevin S. Aldridge and Columbus Dispatch Executive Editor Michael Shearer on behalf of the Cincinnati Enquirer editorial board.
Editorials are fact-based assessments of issues of importance to the communities we serve. These are not the opinions of our reporting staff members, who strive for neutrality in their reporting.
