Last week's deal on a new 15-district congressional map was something of a surprise, as Democrats on the Ohio Redistricting Commission voted for a Republican-proposed map they said they didn’t like. Those Democratic leaders said that decision wasn't easy, but it was their best option.
The current map has resulted in 10 Republicans and five Democrats. The new bipartisan map strengthens the GOP’s likelihood of winning 12 of 15 congressional seats by tipping districts around Toledo and Cincinnati currently represented by Democratic U.S. Reps. Marcy Kaptur and Greg Landsman, toward Republicans. The district around Akron is expected to lean more Democratic; that seat is currently held by U.S. Rep. Emilia Sykes, also a Democrat.
Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio (D-Lakewood) described her vote for the map as “the best of a worst-case scenario,” saying the GOP threatened to take to the legislature next month a map that would likely have resulted in 13 Republicans and two Democrats. Supermajority Republicans could have passed that map next month without a single Democratic vote.
“Democratic representation in Ohio would have been decimated. And in the process what we fight for would have been left behind. Facing this impossible challenge with no certain path to preserve a fair map, we worked for compromise," Antonio told reporters after the vote on the map Friday. "But I understand and appreciate the anger we have heard from Ohioans today in this room because you know what? I’m angry too.”
House Minority Leader Dani Isaacsohn (D-Cincinnati) agreed with Antonio, saying that unlike other options that could have passed in November, this map gave Democrats a shot at some success.
“When the choice was between losing three of our strongest members of congress—and make no mistake, that was the choice—when we need them so desperately to be there for President Trump’s last two years in office and in keeping their districts for 2026, there was only one path," Isaacsohn said. "We cannot accept a situation where Ohio has zero competitive congressional districts.”
Because the map passed the Ohio Redistricting Commission with bipartisan support, a referendum on it is not possible. But if Democrats had tried to repeal that map, it would have been a heavy lift trying to put together a campaign in a short period of time during the holiday season. And even though the national party said they’d help financially, Democrats in Ohio would have had to come up with money for the effort.
Ohio Redistricting Commission co-chair Rep. Brian Stewart (R-Ashville) gave credit to Antonio and Isaacsohn for agreeing to the map, which he described as a compromise. He added the outcome of the map isn't certain because "the candidates in the campaigns are going to determine what the breakdown of this map is."
Stewart said GOP candidates have won 19 out of 20 of the statewide elections over the past 15 years, and this new map reflects that reality. He said it satisfies all of the constitutional mandates.
“Folks are always going to complain about a bizarre squiggle of a line here but we’ve been doing that since 1790," Stewart told reporters after the vote on the map. "We are accounting for city lines, township lines and so I think this map keeps communities of interest together. We have minimized county splits, minimized the number of communities that are split. And I think that’s a good product.”
But dozens of people disagreed, testifying at the two meetings of the commission last week that the map was gerrymandered to favor Republicans and that it didn’t receive the transparency intended in the constitutional process Ohioans approved in 2018.
The new map wasn’t unveiled to the public before Thursday, less than 24 hours before the commission voted unanimously for it. Cathy Johnston of Columbus said that’s against the spirit of the constitutionally-prescribed process.
“We don’t know who drew the map. We don’t know who is responsible for the map. We don’t know who was married to the map process, and all of a sudden it's here," Johnston said.
The meeting where the map was unveiled on Thursday was tense. About two dozen activists were in the room, applauding the speech and at times jeering some commission members. And there were outbursts that resulted in some getting kicked out.
Some said they were angry at the two Democratic leaders on the commission for agreeing instead of fighting it out in possible court actions or a referendum. Among them was former Ohio Consumers' Counsel Janine Migden-Ostrander.
“They’ve hurt democracy by passing these maps. I think we would have been better served if they had stood their ground and let us try to do some sort of a referendum if it went through the legislature, let the Republicans be accountable for their bad act, and not cave in," Migden-Ostrander said.
There is some support among those who spoke out against the map to bring back to the ballot the idea of a citizen-led redistricting process that cuts politicians out of the process altogether. But that will take a lot of money and volunteers – some of the same people who are angry about what happened with this map.
Democratic former state lawmaker Mike Curtin is among the experts on Ohio’s redistricting process. When asked whether Democrats might take to the ballot another constitutional change like the one that failed last year, Curtin had a concern.
"What they would have to worry about would be the ballot board corrupting the ballot language which, as you know, the ballot board did the last time around on a Democratic sponsored redistricting amendment," Curtin said.
But Stewart said the deal that brought the new map forward is proof the current redistricting process is effective.
“The process that voters approved in 2018 has worked to come to a bipartisan compromise," Stewart said. "I think throughout this process, both parties accepted the benefits and the drawbacks of a bipartisan map here in the Ohio Redistricting Commission."
Though the map did pass unanimously, lawsuits are expected.
