Republicans, Democrats offer competing proposals as Ohio Redistricting Commission faces

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio Redistricting Commission is heading into its final hours to meet a court-ordered deadline to draw and approve a new set of state legislative maps. And Republicans and Democrats remain divided on how closely to adhere to Ohio’s political balance as they design them.

The five-Republican, two-Democrat commission is scheduled to meet at 1:30 p.m., although the starting time has been moved back twice already today. It has until midnight to meet a deadline imposed by the Ohio Supreme Court, which last week threw out a previous set of Republican-approved maps as unconstitutional under Ohio’s new anti-gerrymandering rules.

The court in a 4-3 decision gave the redistricting commission 10 days to come up with a new plan that more closely matched Ohio’s statewide vote, which in recent elections averages out to 54% Democratic and 46% Republican. The plan rejected by the court favored Republicans to win 66% of state legislative seats.

Late Friday night, Republicans introduced maps that on paper, would favor the GOP to win 57 of 99 seats in the Ohio House, and 20 of 33 seats in the Ohio Senate (58% Republican, 42% Democrat.) And Saturday morning, Democrats released their own proposal that would favor the GOP to win 54 House seats and 18 Senate seats (54% Republican, 46% Democrat.)

The difference in proposals has to do with competing interpretations — and of course, partisanship — of the Ohio Supreme Court ruling. The court identified a map proposal — submitted by plaintiffs as evidence — as a constitutional proposal. That proposal, drawn by a Stanford University political scientist, awarded Republicans 58% of state legislative seats.

The court also wrote if it’s possible to draw maps that comply with the state constitution, including the political requirements and geographic rules on how counties can be split, the commission “must adopt a plan that does so.”

The Republican proposal includes many Democratic-leaning districts that more accurately can be thought of as toss-ups. It suggests Republicans are trying to create a 58% Republican map while designing as many Democratic seats as possible to be just barely so.

For example, the GOP proposal for Cuyahoga, Summit and part of Geauga County has 15 seats, all Democratic-leaning. But seven of them lean Democratic by less than 1%.

In contrast, the Democratic plan has more Democratic seats and fewer seats that are competitive. Democratic staff have said Republicans’ approach of creating a mix of competitive Democratic leaning districts and solid Republican districts could be rejected by the court as imbalanced in favor of Republicans. Ohio’s new anti-gerrymandering rules also say a map can’t “be drawn primarily to favor or disfavor a political party.”

If Democrats and Republicans can agree on a map, it will last for the typical 10 years. If not, a Republican-only plan would expire after four years.

And the commission’s work is occurring against another deadline: the filing deadline for state legislative candidates running in the May primary election is just a little more than a week away.

The commission’s two Democratic members, Minority Leader-Elect Allison Russo and Sen. Vernon Sykes, issued a statement Saturday morning staking out their position that matching Ohio’s statewide voting preferences exactly is what the Ohio Supreme Court ordered.

“Ohioans deserve fair, constitutional maps. There is time to give Ohioans what they have demanded, and Democrats are committed to making it happen. It is possible to adopt maps that comply with the Court order and the Ohio Constitution,” the statement said.

The commission’s Republican members are Gov. Mike DeWine, Secretary of State Frank LaRose, state Auditor Keith Faber, House Speaker Bob Cupp and Senate President Matt Huffman.

Here are the Republican proposals.

And here are the Democratic proposals.