COLUMBUS, Ohio (Statehouse News Bureau) — Supporters of the redistricting amendment that will be on the ballot in November have filed suit against the Ohio Ballot Board for approving a summary on the issue on Friday. The summary is what voters will see on the actual ballot — not the amendment itself. And in that suit, filed in the Ohio Supreme Court, Citizens Not Politicians, the group that introduced the amendment, said the summary is untrue, partisan, misleading and therefore unconstitutional.
Chris Davey, spokesman for Citizens Not Politians, said his group is asking the state Supreme Court to order the election board to use different language. And Davey said the court needs to do so quickly because early voting and overseas voting will begin soon.
On Friday, the Republican-dominated Ohio Ballot Board adopted a three-page summary written by Secretary of State Frank LaRose. LaRose is a member of the Ohio Redistricting Commission and has voted for all the maps it approved. Those maps have been ruled unconstitutional seven times, but a federal court barred them until later this year as time ran out to develop new maps.
Don McTigue, an attorney for Citizens Not Politicians, said LaRose’s ballot was more than four times as long as previous wording on redistricting proposals. McTigue also said the wording was unconstitutional because it violated the rule that it cannot be biased. He called it “a farce of Shakespearean proportions.”
LaRose defended the length of the summary, saying the amendment itself was long and full of complicated ideas, and a five-point summary was not sufficient. And in the end, the committee passed the summary proposed by LaRose with one change — an amendment by Republican Sen. Theresa Gavarone (R-Bowling Green) that changed the wording. She suggested replacing the word “gerrymander” with “gerrymander.” That suggestion drew gasps and boos from the plan’s supporters who filled the room. After that adoption was approved, the majority of Republicans, by a 3-2 vote, approved language that includes this section:
“Establish a new taxpayer-funded commission of appointees tasked with rigging the state’s legislative and congressional district boundaries to favor the two major political parties in the state of Ohio, using a formula based on partisan outcomes as the dominant factor.”
In an Ohio Senate Republican podcast, LaRose and fellow Republican Theresa Gavarone (R-Bowling Green), who also sits on the Elections Committee, defended the wording, arguing that passing the amendment would lead to gerrymandering and deprive politicians of the power to correct it.
But supporters of the proposed change say Ohio now has gerrymandered districts precisely because politicians made decisions to protect their power.
Citizens, not politicians Attorney Don McTigue said the goal of the amendment is to prevent gerrymandering by removing politicians from the map-drawing process. Supporters say the proposed process would allow a 15-member citizens’ panel of Republicans, Democrats and independents to use strict criteria to draw fair maps that keep communities together and allow voters to choose their politicians, rather than allowing politicians to choose their voters.
One of the main authors of the proposed change is former Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, a Republican who served on the court when it repeatedly declared the current maps unconstitutional.
Independent groups that monitor redistricting processes across the country have repeatedly stated that Ohio’s current redistricting is among the most gerrymandered in the country.
Now it’s up to the Ohio Supreme Court, which is dominated by Republicans.
