Ohio needs a better way to redraw its political map

First, let’s accept an inescapable fact about any maps that define Ohio’s legislative and congressional districts: Our state has six cities with populations greater than 100,000 each, and nine other cities with at least 50,000 residents. It also has sprawling rural landscapes where the biggest town is often a county seat of 10,000 people or fewer.

To comply with the dictum that districts must be equal in population, or at least nearly so, the Buckeye State’s new map leaves Ohioans with anomalies such as the 6th Congressional District, which runs south from the Youngstown area along the Ohio River all the way to Scioto County, more than 200 miles away.

Conversely, the new 3rd Congressional District, home to roughly the same number of Ohioans as the 6th, is basically just Columbus and northern Franklin County. Such wildly disparate districts go with the territory in this state.

But Rep. Marcy Kaptur’s newly structured 9th Congressional District would baffle someone unschooled in Ohio politics. The new 9th includes most of Toledo, as it did before, but now it stretches all the way to Cleveland’s western and southern suburbs, gobbling up much of what used to be the 10th District.

By now you know why. Republicans hold a 4-1 majority on the Ohio Apportionment Board, which sets legislative district boundaries. The GOP also enjoys significant majorities in the General Assembly, which draws congressional districts. They were empowered to stick it to the Democrats.

The result is the approaching March 6 primary contest between two veteran Democrats in the Ohio congressional caucus, Ms. Kaptur and Dennis Kucinich, which obviously only one can win.

Sun Belt and western states grew faster than Ohio over the past decade, which means a reduction in Ohio’s seats in the U.S. House from 18 to 16. In fact, Ohio has lost congressional seats after every decennial census since 1970 — soon to be an eight-seat reduction overall from the 24-member delegation of 1960.

It’s expected that the 16 seats that remain will lean 12-4 Republican.

Either Miss Kaptur, with 28 years of service in Washington, or Mr. Kucinich, with 14 years, will be forced out. Also gone will be either Democratic Rep. Betty Sutton or Republican Rep. Jim Renacci in the newly configured 16th district, south of Cleveland. The Republican is favored in that race.

Another incumbent, Rep. Steve Austria, a two-term Republican from Beavercreek whose 7th District was merged into three other districts, chose not to run again.

I’m not necessarily advocating longevity in Washington. A certain amount of turnover is not a bad thing. And if you think that this is one more rant from a liberal whiner, you’re only half right. I whine — therefore I am — but I’m just as likely to whine conservatively.

If Democrats were the majority on the apportionment board or in the legislature, the new maps would look a lot different. Not better, just different, and skewed to their own self-protection.

The game is always the same. Every 10 years, the Census provides a fresh body count and the party in charge pursues its prize: party-friendly congressional and legislative maps with one overarching objective: to secure or preserve political advantage.

Until some last-minute revisions of the new map, Rep. Jim Jordan’s 4th District included portions of downtown and East Toledo. So what, you say? Well, the southern end of the congressional district nearly reaches Clark County, between Columbus and Dayton. Mr. Jordan is from Urbana. That’s a long way from Front and Consaul streets.

The apportionment process needs a complete overhaul, but we may see another census before we achieve any meaningful change.

There are precedents. Eleven states have some form of nonpartisan or bipartisan redistricting plan. In several of those states, no member of the commission or agency that is charged with drawing new maps can be an elected public official.

In Ohio, all of them are: the governor, secretary of state, auditor, and two legislators on the board that draws legislative boundaries, and the 132 state representatives and senators who approve the congressional map.

Here’s the problem: Neither party wants to be the one that falls on its collective sword for the public good. Where’s statesmanship when we need it? Instead, we get polarized, paralyzed “leadership” that declares a good idea dead on arrival simply because the other side thought of it.

Sometimes I wonder whether all this really matters to the general public. Maybe it’s only an issue for elected officials with turf to protect and for journalists and other assorted political junkies. If so, I’m wasting my time.

But I prefer to believe that thoughtful Ohioans understand there’s got to be a better way.

Thomas Walton is the retired editor and vice president of The Blade. His column appears every other Monday.

Contact him at: twalton@theblade.com