Gov. Mike DeWine wants Ohio voters to reject the redistricting amendment on the November ballot in favor of a future plan he hopes to work with lawmakers to create. But backers of the amendment say parts of the plan DeWine wants to bring to Ohio are included in that fall ballot issue.
The Citizens Not Politicians amendment would create a 15-member panel to draw legislators' district lines, and would ban politicians from joining it. It would eliminate the Ohio Redistricting Commission, which includes the governor among its seven members. There was widespread frustration at that commission, which produced maps that the Ohio Supreme Court ruled were unconstitutionally gerrymandered. DeWine is promising voters that if they reject the fall amendment, he will work with Ohio lawmakers next year to come up with a better method for redistricting based on the Iowa plan.
What is the Iowa redistricting plan?
The Iowa plan, passed in 1980, has been the "gold standard" of redistricting for decades, said Christopher Larimer, professor of political science at the University of Northern Iowa.
The plan that involves Iowa’s independent Legislative Services Agency. It's a non-partisan agency similar to the Congressional Budget Office or Ohio’s Legislative Services Commission, both of which help lawmakers draft bills and analyze legislation. Larimer said that Iowa agency draws lines based on population numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau and must draw compact districts. He said county lines can’t be divided for Congressional districts but can for legislative races. And Larimer said the agency doesn't give consideration to drawing boundaries to protect politicians.
"What happens every redistricting cycle, when you get down to those state legislative districts, you have incumbents drawn into the same districts, sometimes incumbents of the same party, and they end up having to run against one another in the primary or they decide to move to another district," Larimer said.
But Larimer said in the end, politicians still must approve maps. During recent redistricing processes, he said politicians have been rejecting maps more frequently. And if they reject a map three times, the process allows legislators to make changes to the map.
Larimer said when there are arguments against the Iowa plan, it usually involves how compact the district is. Republicans control the Iowa legislature currently. He said lawmakers who object often talk about compactness, but sometimes those objections are more likely based on political considerations.
With three million people living in Iowa, the state has a much smaller population than Ohio, which has about four times as many residents. And Ohio has geographical challenges that Iowa doesn't have.
Elements of Iowa plan are in the one before voters
Princeton University researchers have studied redistricting throughout the country. Iowa’s system got a letter grade of B on the redistricting report card from the Princeton Gerrymandering Project. Ohio’s system earned a D.
"The Ohio plan that's on the ballot this November comes the closest to being a silver bullet to getting fair districting," said Sam Wang, who works on that project. He said key elements of the Iowa plan are included in the Citizens Not Politicians proposal.
Wang said supermajorities, like the Republicans hold in both chambers of the Ohio Statehouse, can be problematic in processes where lawmakers have any control over any part of the process.
"Any state that has one party firmly in control is going to have a natural conflict of interest in doing a good job at redistricting,” Wang said. “Whether it is Republicans or Democrats in charge, over and over, we have seen examples where a single part in charge has very little incentive to take into account a broad range of needs.”
“The temptation is overwhelming to self-deal,” Wang added.
The Citizens Not Politicians plan would cut politicians and lobbyists out of the redistricting process and put a 15-member citizen panel in charge of drawing district lines. That panel would be composed of an equal number of Republicans, Democrats, and independents selected through a detailed process.
Courts played big role in current maps
Ohio’s current legislative and congressional maps were put in place through federal court rulings. In 2022, Republicans increased their supermajorities in the 99-member House from 64 seats to 67, and in the 33-member Senate from 25 seats to 26. The map for Ohio's 15-member congressional delegation was expected to result in the election of 12 Republicans and three Democrats, but the final result was 10 Republicans and five Democrats. And while the two Democrats on the commission eventually voted to join all Republicans in approving the maps, both have said they were not happy with the outcome and only voted that way to prevent even worse maps from being adopted.
