CINCINNATI — A new proposal to end gerrymandering in Ohio got the green light to collect signatures to appear on the November 2024 ballot.
The Citizens Not Politicians coalition wants to amend the state’s constitution to change who is in charge of drawing congressional district maps in Ohio.
“Well the amendment would amend the Ohio Constitution and it would create a 15-member citizens redistricting commission that would bar politicians from participating. Have five independents, five democrats and five republicans,” said Citizens Not Politicians coalition spokesperson Chris Davey.
Davey said the proposal would also require a transparent process to ensure fair maps. It would ban former politicians, political party officials, lobbyists and large political donors from sitting on the commission.
“The politicians have demonstrated they are unwilling or incapable of drawing fair maps in a transparent process,” Davey said.
University of Cincinnati Political Science professor David Niven said this process has worked in other states.
“Well, this is a movement that we’ve seen have great success in states including Michigan, Colorado, California,” Niven said.. “What we’ve seen in those states is much fairer maps instead of maps drawn for one party or maps drawn for one candidate.”
Niven thinks the coalition’s plan could lead to fairer maps being drawn in Ohio.
“What would happen with a fair commission? A couple of really big things would happen. One we would get rid of the exaggerated power where Republicans can win half the vote and take three-quarters of the seats that would end," Niven said. "The other big thing that would happen is there tends to be more competitive elections, actual races where candidates have to work for people’s votes."
Currently, the Ohio Redistricting Commissiondraws the maps. The group is made up of two Republicans and two Democrats in the statehouse, the governor, the secretary of state and the state auditor.
The maps created by this group were deemed unconstitutional in the past by the Ohio Supreme Court.
“Ohio had a series of reforms for redistricting that went into effect in the last cycle, and by in large it was a disaster. The maps that were drawn were thrown out by the court. They then came back to life like zombies when the federal court said "well we have to have an election,” Niven said.
Niven said there was one thing that worked in the redistricting reform.
“That one thing was a set of rules that limited which cities could be split into pieces and one of the beneficiaries of that rule was Cincinnati and under the new rules, you have to keep Cincinnati whole in a congressional district,” Niven said.
He said drawing fair maps is simple.
“You just don’t draw zigzagging lines through communities with the intention of splitting their vote. You try and keep places that are similar. You know you put farming communities with farming communities and the like. It’s not that hard,” he said.
Niven said this petition impacts everyone in the state.
“Here’s why this matters so much, there’s a reason why the Ohio legislature passed abortion laws that are so far away from where the average Ohio voter is and that reason is gerrymandering. And, whatever issue that you’re concerned about, literally any issue, it’s affected by whether we have districts that are drawn to exaggerate political power or districts that are meant to fairly reflect Ohio,” he said.
“If you believe in fairness and you want to have a system that’s not rigged by politicians, if you believe citizens should be in charge then you should sign this petition,” Davey said.
Citizens Not Politicians will start to collect signatures in the coming weeks. They need over 413,487 valid signatures by July 3, 2024 to get on the November ballot.
