COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohioans will be voting on Issue 1 this November — a redistricting proposal that could drastically change the balance of power within the Statehouse.
I spent a day with supporters and a day with opponents. Here is what you need to know about the constitutional amendment.
What am I voting on?
You will be voting on whether Ohio should remove politicians from the redistricting process.
Currently, Ohio lawmakers draw the maps — ones that directly impact them and their colleagues.
The Ohio Redistricting Commission (ORC) is made up of seven spots. Two will always go to Republicans and two to Democrats in the Statehouse. The three remaining seats include the governor, secretary of state and auditor.
This led to the Ohio Redistricting Mess of 2022, where a bipartisan Ohio Supreme Court struck down seven different passed maps, citing that the GOP members of the commission were drawing lines to unfairly benefit their party.
Voting yes on Issue 1 would create a 15-member Ohio Citizens Redistricting Commission (OCRC), made up of Republican, Democratic and independent citizens who broadly represent the different geographic areas and demographics of the state.
It bans current or former politicians, political party officials, lobbyists and large political donors from sitting on the commission.
It requires fair and impartial districts by making it unconstitutional to draw voting districts that discriminate against or favor any political party or individual politician. It also mandates the commission to operate under an open and independent process.
A bipartisan screening panel of two Republican and two Democratic retired judges would choose the commissioners through an extensive application process.
The commissioners would draw the maps based on federal law, also taking into account past election data on partisan preferences. The commission would make sure that each district has a reasonably equal population and that communities of interest are kept together.
Voting no on Issue 1 would be rejecting the independent commission proposal and keeping the current setup.
Supporters
This isn’t a fight between Democrats and Republicans — it’s between citizens and politicians, according to the amendment backers.
Outside the Shaker Heights Public Library, Annette Tucker Sutherland stayed in the heat for hours to talk to potential voters.
"I'm out here trying to urge everybody to ban gerrymandering in Ohio and take control of legislative districts back from the politicians," Tucker Sutherland told me.
She is part of Citizens Not Politicians, the nonpartisan coalition that proposed the constitutional amendment.
It is made up of about one hundred organizations ranging from unions to religious groups, plus an additional 70 business leaders with diverse political beliefs, all dedicated to banning gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is the purposeful manipulation of boundary lines to favor a political party.
Former Republican Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor is the face of the campaign, showing that this isn't a partisan issue.
"With this amendment on the ballot, Ohioans have the chance to reclaim their power from the self-serving politicians who want to stay in power long past their expiration date while ignoring the needs of the voters," O'Connor said.
One example of why Tucker Sutherland said this is needed is because of 2011’s Senate Bill 5, which ended or severely limited collective bargaining rights for workers. Despite the mass protest, the bill was signed into law. Voters were so angry that they put a referendum on the ballot, which passed overwhelmingly.
Although S.B. 5 was one of the most extreme examples of voter pushback, citizens have gone to the ballot box three separate times in 2023 to have their voices heard.
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Democratic politicians, organizations ranging from businesses to police and even fellow Republicans have criticized the vast majority of the Ohio GOP for going against democracy for the following: Going against the will of the voters on anti-gerrymandering reform they passed in both 2015 and 2018, going against a bipartisan Ohio Supreme Court that rejected said gerrymandered maps seven separate times, trying to subvert the people's voice on abortion, marijuana and voting access (special election to make the constitution harder to amend), failing to pass constitutional funding for public schools for decades and a seemingly endless list of other fights Democrats and nonpartisan advocates lose time and time again (they say because the district maps are gerrymandered).
Something that brought together Democrats and Republicans in their anger against the state lawmakers was the August 2023 special election. Opponents struck down Issue 1, which would have made it harder to amend the state constitution. It failed 57-43%.
Twenty-two of Ohio's 88 counties voted no against Issue 1, making up nearly 60% of the vote. Twelve fall into the urban category, six in the partly rural and four totally rural. Fifteen of the 22 counties voted for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
Issues like S.B. 5 and the 2023 Aug. special election should never have happened in the first place because the citizens were so against it, advocates have argued.
Cuyahoga County voter James Posey said he feels like the current system leaves him unable to have his voice heard at the state level.
"Do you think [the lawmakers] represent you and your interests?" I asked him.
"They haven't been, they really haven’t been," Posey said.
That is why he is voting yes.
"Ending gerrymandering is the key to making things more fair in Ohio and returning us to a point where we have a legislature that listens to all voters and engages in bipartisan collaboration," Tucker Sutherland said.
Citizens will be able to actually watch the process of mapmaking, she added.
"There will be a full public and transparent process," she said. "There'll be a lot of rules to make sure that the districts end up being as fair as we can possibly make them and fair."
The government should work for the benefit of all people, not to help themselves in their careers, he said.
"It's been going on for a long time and there's a purpose behind it," Posey said. "It's purpose is to keep in place the power of the people that are in power — and that's an issue."
Opponents
Moving south to Medina County, opponents argue that Issue 1 would actually lead to less accountability.
"We don't want any more bureaucracies and that's what this sets up," former Republican Congressman Jim Renacci said.
While sitting with me in Wadsworth, Renacci agreed that the redistricting system needs to change — but Issue 1 would cause more problems.
"Everybody is political, but this system is supposed to find 15 people who aren't political?" he asked. "Good luck doing that."
Gary Fox, a voter who recently ran for a seat in the Ohio House, is most concerned that the commissioners aren’t able to be held accountable as easily as lawmakers can be.
Although he didn't beat incumbent State Rep. Sharon Ray (R-Wadsworth), he said it's an option for citizens to vote legislators out. When it comes to Issue 1, only the commission can remove a fellow commissioner.
"To do away with a system where democratically elected people are responsible for those maps and to replace that with activists and bureaucrats who are not responsible to anybody and cannot be removed, that's like going out of the frying pan and into the fire," Fox told me.
Bruce Christopher, a Republican and Medina County trustee, brought up financial concerns.
Each commissioner will get paid $125 per day that they work, plus reimbursement for travel.
"That would be your tax money and my tax money," Christopher said, adding that any costs associated with lawsuits — meaning the Ohio Supreme Court justices would be on the clock — would also be funded by taxpayer dollars.
If someone is unhappy with the maps proposed by the commission, there is recourse. Ohioans could seek a review of the plan, and the state Supreme Court would "provide an expedited" process, selecting two "special masters," (a map expert) to hold public hearings and then do an in-depth review of said map on if it complies with the law. If someone disagrees with that ruling by the masters, they can file additional objections which then go to the Supreme Court to hold additional hearings and review.
This still isn't foolproof because the Supreme Court that struck down the 2021-22 maps seven times was "politically motivated," Fox said.
"I believe activist judges were, and one of them was a Republican, insisting that we gerrymander," he added.
This whole bureaucratic mess of the commission could be avoided, Renacci said, if voters reject Issue 1.
"This [current] system doesn't work, adding a new bureaucracy doesn't work," he said. "But yes, let's find a way to keep it in the hands of the citizens."
I brought up 2015 and 2018, explaining that voters overwhelmingly chose redistricting reform to prevent gerrymandering — but kept it with government officials.
Advocates are clear that gerrymandering is still rampant, even though they gave lawmakers at least two times to cut it out.
I asked about those advocates who now want a bureaucracy because they can't trust politicians.
"It's the Democrats who decided they didn't like it because they didn't have enough people at the table, and that's the real key," Renacci responded. "If it was reversed, the Republicans wouldn't like it either."
He brought up how Democrats gerrymandered decades ago, but now that they are not in power, they hate the process.
"This is an ongoing system and it's an ongoing battle that depends on who's in control," he added. "I think in the end, if you put it in a bureaucracy, somebody would say, 'Well, now nobody's in control. Now it's even worse because it's unaccountable.'"
Although rivals with Gov. Mike DeWine, Renacci admitted that he agreed with him on his views of Issue 1.
If voters strike down Issue 1, then lawmakers can have further conversations about how to make the system work, he said.
DeWine is adamantly opposed to the anti-gerrymandering constitutional amendment that will be on the November ballot, saying he plans to create another proposal that voters should "trust."
Renacci believes AI technology could help fairly draw maps.
"Let's find people who are competent and capable who can sit over a computer and do this in the best interests of Ohioans," he said.
Confusion
Each side of the debate is facing an issue right now. The campaigns are getting too confusing, some voters told me.
The signage and slogans look similar.
Issue 1 supporters say this is a tactic by the opponents since they know the vote no side is going to fail, so they are hoping to trick people. Opponents deny this.
So, to be very clear:
VOTE YES if you want to create a 15-member independent panel for redistricting. This would remove politicians from the process.
VOTE NO keeps the status quo, using the current system with elected officials. It could also *possibly* mean the Republicans will try to come up with another option to put on the ballot.
Follow WEWS statehouse reporter Morgan Trau on Twitter and Facebook.
