The Ohio League of Women Voters president, Meg Flack, says there are places in Ohio where boundary lines have been unfairly drawn to benefit a political party – and she says that shouldn’t happen.
Flack:“In a representative democracy, we know it truly depends on voters freely choosing their elected officials….not elected officials
The process of drawing lines for state legislature and the congress is known as redistricting. It happens every decade. And Jim Slagle with the Ohio Campaign for Accountable Redistricting, says it’s very important to every single Ohioan.
Slagle: “How the lines are drawn in the next few months will determine who can be elected, who can make our laws in the next decade so whether the issue is repeal of senate bill five, health care or the state budget…any issue people are interested in, it all....starts with redistricting.
Slagle, Flack and other groups say it’s time Ohio voters had some say in the process. So they are sponsoring a contest. They’ve set up a website where Ohioans can go to try their hands at drawing new boundary lines for legislative and congressional districts. And they want Ohioans to go to that website….draw the line Ohio dot org….. to come up with redistricting plans. Slagle says there are four criteria that people must consider when devising a plan.
Slagle:“One is respecting county boundaries, keeping counties together instead of splitting them apart, Second is compactness – keeping districts from being spread apart farther than necessary. Third is competitiveness. We believe that it’s important that districts are competitive so that either party would have a chance to elect a candidate out of the district so people’s votes matter or count. And fourth is representational fairness. That means that the district should be designed so that it is ..…not biased towards one political party or the other."
Slagle says a fair redistricting plan will not only benefit Ohioans by providing better government but also insure the winners of this contest won’t go away empty handed.
Slagle: “We are offering five thousand dollars in cash prizes because we want to encourage good competition, quality participation in this project. Some of the prizes are allocated as prizes for college/high school students because we think it’s important to involve our young people in this process and we think this …”is an educational process as well”
Ohio lawmakers won’t likely put a lot of stock in this plan. After all, a similar competition was staged in the past and lawmakers didn’t embrace it with open arms. After all, the party in power has an advantage by being able to draw the lines. That’s not lost on Slagle. He says there’s a track record during the past four decades to show the party that draws the lines usually benefits.
Slagle:“Twenty years of those, they were in districts drawn by Democrats. Twenty years of those were in districts drawn by Republicans. And out of those 40 years, 36 of those 40 years, the party that drew the line controlled …the House of Representatives."
Lawmakers are beginning the process of redistricting now. Ohioans who want to participate in this alternative process should submit their legislative plans by August 21st and their congressional plans by September 11th.
