Have Ohio Republicans bent on keeping disproportionate power produced another

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The latest congressional map proposed by the Ohio Redistricting Commission favors Republicans to win 10 of Ohio’s 15 congressional districts.

Two of the five Democratic-leaning districts — anchored by Cincinnati and Toledo — are hotly competitive, making them more accurately thought of as toss-ups. We’re talking about whether the maps are constitutional on Today in Ohio.

Listen online here. Read the automated transcript at the bottom of this post.

Editor Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with editor Leila Atassi, editorial board member Lisa Garvin and content director Laura Johnston.

You’ve been sending Chris lots of thoughts and suggestions on our from-the-newsroom text account, in which he shares what we’re thinking about at cleveland.com. You can sign up for free by sending a text to 216-868-4802.

Here are the questions we’re answering today:

Republicans on the Ohio Redistricting Commission have come up with their second set of maps for Congressional districts in Ohio, after the state Supreme Court rejected the first set as gerrymandered. Is the second set gerrymandered?

Has the unit that investigates citizen complaints against Cleveland police finally turned the corner and started doing the job correctly?

Is Ohio getting closer to becoming a state where anyone can carry a concealed weapon without a permit?

Who are the Ohio members of Congress asking President Joe Biden to give Ukrainian nationals in the United States protected status so they don’t have to return to their county while Russia’s invasion continues?

How Does Senator Rob Portman want to step up the sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine? What does he think the U.S. should do?

How is Ohio Gov, Mike DeWine using some big architectural features in the state to show support for Ukraine?

Jane Timken is not just begging for Donald Trump’s endorsement in her run for the Senate. She’s hiring his former advisors to help her campaign. Who are they?

It’s not every day a former president’s house goes on the market, but we suddenly have on in Northeast Ohio. Who’s is it, and what’s the asking price?

Why are most of the officers in the Cleveland Police bomb squad looking to exit the squad?

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Read the automated post below:

Chris: [00:00:00] It’s Wednesday on today in Ohio, which means we’re talking with Seth Richardson about some politics. It’s the news podcast discussion from cleveland.com and the plain dealer. I’m Chris Quinn here with Seth, as well as Lisa Garvin and Laura Johnston. It’s a sunny Wednesday morning. How are you all doing?

lisa: Pretty well ready for spring.

Seth: Okay.

Chris: Good. Good to hear. It’s a good to hear. Let’s get going. Republicans on the Ohio redistricting commission, if come up with their second set of maps for congressional districts in Ohio, after the state Supreme court rejected, the first set is gerrymandered is the second set gerrymandered, Seth, you can pretty much

Seth: rest assured.

Yes. We’ve come to realize that just about anything that comes out of the Ohio redistricting commission. And it’s probably going to be gerrymandered. Just because Republicans have on the commission have shown that that is there a modus operandi at this point. Um, so yeah, they came out with a new map though, [00:01:00] that is kind of a sensibly, a ten five map is the way it’s sort of build, but you know, you gotta look a little closer at it and you see two of those Democrats, 10 Republican five Democrat, two of those democratic districts are very narrow.

Tossups probably Republicans win, um, you know, in an electoral environment like this year and even the third and. Is around a plus four district, basically Democrats have a four percentage point advantage given the average of the elections from 2016 to 2020, but you know, four points is yeah. Maybe a little outside tossup territory, but it’s still pretty close, all things considered.

So, um, you know, I think the big question that everybody has is, is it going to stand up in the courts? Um, you know, I, I see some things in this map that maybe could end up being problematic. They, they cut off me. Well, okay.

Chris: It’s not proportional. I mean, these are the, these clowns tried this with the legislative.

They go in the [00:02:00] Supreme court, rejects them, says, no, they have to be proportional. So then they come back with a second set of maps that still are proportional. And lo and behold Supreme court says, what are you thinking? We told you to make it proportional. Same thing. They went in with a ridiculously lopsided out of sync with the Ohio vote set of maps.

Supreme court said you can’t do that. You got to follow the rules and they’re doing it again. It’s like, are they just too stupid to understand what the rules

Seth: proportionality that’s in the legislative maps, not the congressional maps. The congressional says you can’t unduly benefit a single party. Right.

I think he, I think is when you look at it, there are definitely some cases where they’re going to look at it and say, Hey, what’s going on here? You know, like, uh, Oakwood for instance, is a predominantly black suburb in Cleveland. It’s been lopped off from what would be Shantelle Brown’s district. Um, I actually think the biggest problem for them when they go in front of the court is going to be Hamilton county.

Because once again, they cut off that Northern black population in suburban Hamilton county. [00:03:00] To make a more competitive district for potentially Steve Shabbat to win by getting that up into Warren county, instead of having a wholly contained Hamilton county district.

Chris: But when we say that it can’t unfairly favor one party over another, that’s basically saying it’s got to match.

It doesn’t match the state. It does unfairly favor. One party greatly favors the Republican party over the democratic party. I just don’t see how this doesn’t get slapped down in a heartbeat with the Supreme court. This is doesn’t even come close to what voters envisioned. You know, if they went with nine and six, you might start to make the argument that, okay, you’re getting closer to getting in the range without these reduction.

Toss up kind of things, but this, this is just another mad power grab by let’s name them. Mike DeWine, key Faber, Frank LA rose, Matt Hoffman, Bob cup. They just keep [00:04:00] abusing the voters to maintain their disproportionate.

Seth: Yeah. I mean, I don’t think anybody’s arguing that right. The courts had said as much. And I’d say probably because, you know, I’m not a lawyer, but yeah.

I think anybody who kind of looks at this even from a layman’s level can see what’s going on here. I mean, even if you look at this Columbus district with Mike Carey’s district, you know, it strikes. You know, completely over to the west, you look at the Lorraine district for instance, right. A, a more toss-up ish area now, but generally like historically a democratic area.

And it’s being lumped in with places on the Indiana border. Right? What do, what does the places on the Indiana border have in common with Lorraine? Like really nothing, especially when you’ve got Southern Cuyahoga county stretching all the way down to Holden’s county with Bob Gibbs. So yeah, I think that’s where they’re going to definitely run into some issues.

Chris: And they keep gambling that the deadlines of the elections will squeeze the Supreme court, which has shown that’s not going to be effective. So, you know, I, I still [00:05:00] think there’s a good chance that they will accept the third version of the legislative maps could be wrong. You know, there’s some arguments again.

But I have a feeling that they’ll say, okay, it meets most of the rules go. I can’t see in any way them signing off on this set of maps. They’re not fair. They’re not what voters were promised. And once again, the Republicans are abusing the good faith of the voters of Ohio. You are listening to today in Ohio.

As the unit that investigates citizen complaints against the Cleveland police finally turned the corner and started doing the job correctly. Lisa, this was a pleasant surprise to come out of the monitor on the Cleveland police consent decree, which I do want to point out was supposed to last five years and is now in, I think its eighth year closing out its.

lisa: Yeah, it started, I think in 2015. So the monitoring team, uh, issued a report to the federal court. That’s overseeing the Cleveland police department consent decree, and they actually had good words to say about the office of professional standards, a…