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Republican Leaders Say They're Working For Bipartisan Congressional Redistricting For 2018 Ballot

Reps. Vernon Sykes (D-Akron) and Matt Huffman (R-Lima) chaired the 2015 campaign for Issue 1 on Statehouse redistricting. Now in the Senate, Huffman is working on a Congressional redistricting plan he says will be similar.
Karen Kasler
Reps. Vernon Sykes (D-Akron) and Matt Huffman (R-Lima) chaired the 2015 campaign for Issue 1 on Statehouse redistricting. Now in the Senate, Huffman is working on a Congressional redistricting plan he says will be similar.

Republican state legislative leaders say they’re putting together a bipartisan group to come up with a new way to draw Congressional districts. This comes as a citizens’ group frustrated with inaction on the issue is planning its own proposal to present to voters.

Sen. Matt Huffman of Lima says the plan will be modeled after the one created by lawmakers and approved by voters in 2015, which overhauled the way state lawmakers’ districts are drawn. That issue was endorsed by a group now circulating petitions to put its own Congressional redistricting plan on next year’s ballot.  Huffman says the one lawmakers will present won’t be perfect, but will be constructed with a careful process.

“Keep in mind that the last two efforts that were put on the ballot, really, by an outside group who said, ‘we’re just going to do what we think is right’ have failed pretty miserably.”

The group Fair Congressional Districts for Ohio has said its members support legislative efforts to change the map-drawing process, but that they’ll take it to the ballot themselves if necessary.

Copyright 2017 The Statehouse News Bureau

Contact Karen at 614/578-6375 or at kkasler@statehousenews.org.