The corrupt partisan system that Ohio voters must use to elect their state lawmakers is an assault on representative democracy. Issue 1 on next month’s statewide ballot would restore a degree of fairness, accountability, and bipartisanship to the process. It deserves a YES vote.
Ohio long has been considered a swing state in national politics; polls suggest that voters’ support is divided fairly evenly between the Republican and Democratic parties. Yet largely because GOP elected officials dominate the state board that draws district maps for the General Assembly, two-thirds of state lawmakers are Republicans.
Click here to read more Blade editorials
This is not just a reflection of recent election results, but also a product of deliberate gerrymandering aimed at maximizing Republican power (Democrats engaged in the same antics when they controlled state government). Ohio’s rigged system of legislative districting leads to all sorts of pernicious outcomes.
Legislative gerrymandering promotes ideological extremism and discourages bipartisan compromise, often leading to the enactment of policies that most Ohioans oppose. It depresses political competition and choice, giving voters fewer incentives to participate.
It divides communities and counties — often bizarrely — and makes a mockery of the principle of “one person, one vote.” It unfairly favors incumbents and disenfranchises minority voters. A recent study by the League of Women Voters of Ohio concludes that the way the maps are drawn virtually dictates the outcomes of nearly all legislative elections.
Approval of Issue 1 would amend the Ohio Constitution to replace the five-member state Apportionment Board — four of whose members are Republicans — with a seven-member redistricting commission that would include greater representation for the minority party. At least two members of each party would be required to approve a set of district maps for the state House and Senate that would remain in effect for 10 years, preventing either party from monopolizing the process.
The new system would be more transparent to voters by requiring public participation in reapportionment. It would create legislative districts that are more geographically compact, politically competitive, and reflective of voters’ party preferences. The Ohio Supreme Court could order the commission to draw a new map if the one it produces unfairly favors either party.
Issue 1 could and should be stronger. It would not take effect until legislative districts are redrawn to reflect population shifts measured by the 2020 Census. Voters would have to wait until 2022 at the earliest to elect a more-representative legislature. And if the parties can’t agree on new maps, that outcome could be delayed until 2026.
Nor does the ballot proposal affect Ohio’s congressional delegation, which is gerrymandered even more outrageously than the General Assembly. Republicans hold 12 of the state’s 16 seats in the U.S. House. Speaker John Boehner of Ohio has said that lopsided distribution suits him just fine, even though nationwide gerrymandering — and the ideological radicals it helped bring to the House — contributed to his pending departure from Congress.
Ohio would do better to remove altogether the power to draw political districts from elected officials of both parties, and entrust it to a nonpartisan, appointed citizens’ commission; such panels are working well in other states. But twice in the past decade, Ohio voters rejected proposals that would have created such an independent commission.
For now, Issue 1 represents the only opportunity voters have to reject the anti-democratic status quo in legislative elections. The ballot proposal has the support of both parties, good-government lobbies, business and labor, interest groups of all ideological stripes, and organizations that represent minority voters.
Issue 1 would start to make the General Assembly more representative of all Ohioans, and less of a game that is fixed by politicians against voters. Vote YES on Issue 1.
First Published October 4, 2015, 4:00 a.m.
