Replace redistricting committee with ordinary people
Anything written about Ohio’s redistricting scandal – the scandal: Brazen contempt for voters – may well be outdated by the Ohio Supreme Court or the U.S. District Court for Southern Ohio.
But before amnesia sets in, be it remembered that fewer than a half-dozen men (all white, all Republican) have put their party’s interest against the interests of voters.
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Before anyone brays that Democrats would do the same, given the chance, yes, they likely would: Politics is an eight-letter word for “power,” not “ethics.” Neither party has a monopoly on virtue. But the concrete fact is that Democrats don’t have the power – not now – to do what the redistricting commission’s five Republicans have done: tied in knots Ohio’s constitutionally prescribed rules for drawing fair congressional and General Assembly districts.
It should have been obvious, though only a few insiders said so at the time, that the constitutional amendments “reforming” district-drawing (2015, for General Assembly districts; 2018, for congressional districts) have a fatal flaw: They let politicians, not rank-and-file Ohioans, make all the decisions, which is a little like trying to transform gluttons into dieticians. It hasn’t worked. It can’t work.
As to the Ohio General Assembly districts, the redistricting commission is simply the old apportionment board with haircuts and manicures.
As to congressional districts, the 2018 “reform” still, in effect, lets the Statehouse’s term-limited legislators tailor congressional districts to suit their future job plans.
If a bystander has a suspicious mind, she or he must wonder if the 2015 and 2018 redistricting “reforms” were crafted inside the legislature to head off genuine reforms that a statewide-petitioned plan might have put in place – kind of like the 1982 “reform” of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio; insiders crafted it to (successfully) undercut a drive for popular election of the PUCO. And by now, most Ohioans know just how much the 1982 “reform” changed the PUCO: Nada.
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To really guarantee fair legislative and congressional districts, a new redistricting panel would have to exclude officeholders or party official or candidates from membership. Plus, the new panel would have to have constitutionally guaranteed funding to protect it from General Assembly interference.
And the selection of panel members should be as free from political antics as humanly possible. Selection could be somewhat like that of the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, which appears to truly be a citizens’ – not an insiders’ – body.
Contrast that kind of membership with Ohio’s Redistricting Commission – Senate President Matt Huffman and House Speaker Robert Cupp, both Lima Republicans, and Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican of Greene County’s Cedarville, State Auditor Keith Faber, a Republican of western Ohio’s Celina, and Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose, of Upper Arlington.
None of these commissioners can be seen as a rank-and-file Ohioan by any leap of logic.
Meanwhile, the panel’s only diversity is provided by Sen. Vernon Sykes, a Black Akron Democrat, and House Minority Leader Allison Russo, an Upper Arlington Democrat.
Come what may, Ohio’s Redistricting Commission has proven itself to be a failure. It should be abolished and replaced – or Ohio should simply assign districting to the courts, which is where (at this writing) Ohio is already headed.
One more thing: Any genuine redistricting reform must simplify Ohio’s current rules for drawing General Assembly districts. In what may actually be a good-faith gripe, the GOP insiders who are the redistricting commission’s ringmasters have said that drawing 99 politically proportionate Ohio House districts (54 GOP-leaning, 45 Democratic-leaning) is more complicated than drawing Queen Elizabeth II’s family tree.
Reason: Rules dating to the ‘60s strictly limit where and how Statehouse district lines may split local government boundaries (example: townships) in trying to equalize Statehouse districts’ populations.
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But the object of fair apportionment and districting is about adequately transmitting voters’ sentiments to the Statehouse. That is, as the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Reynolds vs. Sims in 1964 that “[state] legislators represent people, not areas.” Why, say, is a township boundary so sacred that it can trump Ohioans’ political equality?
It isn’t, and it shouldn’t.
Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University. [email protected]
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