GOP Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine opposes fall ballot effort to replace troubled political mapmaking system
Columbus, Ohio — Ohio’s Republican Gov. Mike DeWine said Wednesday he will work to a matter of mood in autumn aimed at reforming the state’s problematic political map system and, if passed, working with state lawmakers next year to introduce a competing amendment based on the Iowa model.
During a press conference, complete with corroborating images, DeWine claimed that the rules laid out in the Citizens Not Politicians amendment would divide communities and prescribe outcomes that fit “the classic definition of gerrymandering.” He took specific aim at the proposal’s requirement for partisan proportionality in the maps.
“Now the idea of proportionality sounds fair,” he said. “But we see that requiring the mapmaker to draw districts that each favor one political party, where each district has a predetermined party advantage, and requiring a certain number of districts to favor each party, defeats all other good government goals. They all go away.”
DeWine said Iowa’s system, which prohibits mapmakers from consulting past election results or protecting individual lawmakers, would take politics out of the process.
Supporters of Ohio’s fall ballot measure disagreed, pointing out that Iowa’s legislature has the final say over political district maps in the state — precisely the scenario Ohio’s plan is designed to avoid. That’s after Ohio’s current system, with the state legislature and a state redistricting commission staffed by elected officials including DeWine, produced seven rounds of legislative and congressional maps that were struck down by the courts as unconstitutional.
“This is the same tired playbook in Ohio,” said John Bisognano, president of All On The Line, a national anti-gerrymandering group backed by Democrats that is involved in the campaign. “Given that Ohio politicians have repeatedly ignored well-intentioned reforms to put themselves in power, the Iowa model simply won’t work in the Buckeye State. Any proposal that would give gerrymandering politicians the ability to keep the pen to draw the maps or change the rules is unacceptable to Ohioans.”
The proposal on the fall ballot calls for replacing the Ohio Redistricting Commission, made up of the governor, auditor, secretary of state and the four legislative leaders, with an independent body directly selected by citizens. The new panel would be diversified by party affiliation and geography.
During the lengthy process of redrawing district boundaries based on the results of the 2020 Census, challenges were filed in court that resulted in two congressional maps and five sets of Statehouse maps being rejected as unconstitutional changes.
DeWine argued that it matters less who draws the maps than what criteria the state constitution forces them to follow. He said he will work with the Legislature in January to put the Iowa plan before voters and, if lawmakers fail, he might even consider putting it on the statewide ballot through an initiative.
When asked why he chose not to immediately call a special session to discuss the issue, he recently did to fix a voting deadline issue that affected the presidential election, DeWine said that strategy was not supported by the politically divided Ohio House of Representatives.
A new session begins in January. It’s possible that Republican Senate President Matt Huffman — who has spoken out against the fall redistricting measure — will have succeeded by then his bid to return to the House and win the Speaker’s seat away from fellow Republican Jason Stephens. Stephens, whose term heavily dependent on Democratshas failed to enact several of DeWine’s legislative priorities this session.