It happens every ten years. Census numbers show Ohio’s population. Then a panel of legislators comes up with a map that outlines how congressional districts should be changed based on the new population figures. Then the legislature approves it. The changes are made and voters might find themselves in a new congressional district with cities or counties that were not in the mix before. And this time around, because of population shifts, Ohio will lose two seats. Right now the Republican party controls the legislature that will eventually approve a plan. And those lawmakers could draw districts in a way that would make it easier for members of their party to get elected in the new districts.
Jim Slagle says, "Politics as usual has been the norm but it doesn’t have to be that way."
Slagle heads up a consortium of several groups: Ohio league of Women Voters, Citizen Action, and Common Cause to name a few. Slagle’s group has been holding a contest in recent months, asking people to look at the districts and come up with maps of their own (taking into account demographics, competitiveness, compactness for example) to come up with fair districts where there are few, if any, districts with lopsided political majorities. A state representative from Illinois won the contest this year. Slagle says the winning map is fair and would make most of Ohio’s districts competitive. He submitted the winning map as well as some others that placed high in the contest to the legislative panel that’s proposing new districts, hoping lawmakers will give them serious consideration. Slagle is hoping lawmakers will take a good look at the maps, as well as maps the legislators themselves draw, and will give Ohioans the opportunity to comment on them.
Slagle says, "Depends on what your motives are. If your motive is to have a fair and open process that’s fair to the voters, there’d be every reason to make this transparent."
But just hours after Slagle released the winning maps to the media, the legislative panel charged proposing a new map released one of its own. Republican Representative Matt Huffman said the consortium’s winning map was not constitutional. And he asked majority Republicans on that panel to instead vote the GOP plan out of committee in 24 hours so it could go through the legislative process. Democrats don’t like the map Huffman is proposing, saying it creates unfair districts, and Democrats say Ohioans need more time to digest the proposal and comment on it.
Huffman says hearings held throughout the state gave the public plenty of time to weigh in on the redistricting process. "Part of the reason that we had these hearings is to find out what the public wanted to have."
Huffman says Democrats who want to take a couple of weeks to go over the maps are not dealing with the reality of the tight schedule that’s necessary for this process. Huffman says candidates in those new districts need to quickly need to know the changes. "This process still isn’t going to be done until the end fo the month. Now we are in to October."
But House Minority leader, Democrat Armond Budish says Ohioans don’t want the decision made in a vacuum. He says there’s time to give a couple of weeks for the public to comment on the plan. And he says Republicans promised extra time months ago.
Budish says, "They are trying to push it through the legislature in two days, two days, and we won’t go along with that."
Budish says if Republicans don’t want to make good on the promise to allow more time for the public to be included in this process, his minority caucus won’t provide votes for something the Republicans want – legislation that would move the primary from March to May of next year. Budish explains that legislation would require an emergency clause. "An emergency clause would require 66 votes in the house. They have 59 Republicans and they need 7 democrats to support that. At this point, we won’t support that if they won’t give the public any opportunity to comment."
So this line in the sand that Democrats have drawn is a new complication in the debate over where to draw the redistricting lines.