If you are an Ohio voter, you will have a lot of decisions to make in the November election.
One of the most important — with a long-lasting impact — is likely to be a state constitutional amendment to fundamentally change how Ohio's state and congressional districts are drawn.
If a coalition of voter rights groups called Citizens Not Politicians can gather about 414,000 signatures of registered voters in at least 44 of Ohio's 88 counties between now and July 3, their constitutional amendment will be on the November 5 general election ballot.
Their plan takes control of the process out of the hands of elected officials and lobbyists and shifts the power to Ohio's citizens.
Many Republicans in the Ohio General Assembly hate the idea.
For decades, Republicans have controlled the process and turned it into a system where, instead of voters choosing their elected officials, elected officials choose their voters.
That may end soon.
Major organizations like Common Cause Ohio, the ACLU, and the League of Women Voters of Ohio will work to persuade Ohio voters to make a lasting change in Ohio's political power structure.
One-party power over redistricting would be as dead as a doornail in Ohio.
"We're going to go out and make the case that the system in Ohio is rigged for the benefit of one party," said Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio.
"The maps we have now are nothing but an incumbent protection plan," Turcer said. "It's why so many people feel a disconnect between what they want from government and what they get from the legislature."
If passed, Ohio would adopt a Michigan-style method of drawing district lines — one that worked well in the 2022 election in that state.
Here's what it would do:
- Create a 15-member Ohio Citizens Redistricting Commission which would include five Democrats, five Republicans and five independent voters.
- Ban current or former elected officials, political party officials, and lobbyists from serving.
- Members of the public would apply for a position on the commission, with the appointments made by a panel of retired Republican and Democratic judges.
- It would require "fair and impartial" districts and make it unconstitutional to draw districts that either discriminate against or favor any political party or individual politicians.
- Conduct an open process, with public input, before deciding on congressional and state districts maps.
Drawing new district lines for the Ohio General Assembly and for Ohio's congressional delegation is required after every U.S. Census.
The redistricting system that was overwhelmingly adopted by Ohio voters in two elections — 2015 and 2018 — was well-intentioned but turned out to be a total failure in producing fair and balanced legislative districts through a seven-member Ohio Redistricting Commission.
RELATED: Ohio's redistricting process was 'doomed to fail,' former chief justice says
What it produced in the most recent cycle was a commission made up of five Republicans and two Democrats, where the Republican majority managed to game the system long enough to get what they wanted — guaranteed veto-proof supermajorities in both the Ohio House and Senate, along with a 15-member U.S. House delegation made up of 10 Republicans and five Democrats.
Last year, in the endless battles over legislative district maps, four-members of the Ohio Supreme Court set a goal for the Republican mapmakers — to create maps which would closely match the 54%-46% statewide split among Ohio voters, with the GOP having the edge.
Republicans on the redistricting commission simply ignored that.
There are now 66 Republicans in the Ohio House. Ask your grade school kids; they could tell you that is 67% of the House.
The Ohio Senate is even more lopsided — 26 of the Senate's 33 seats are held by Republicans. A whopping 79%.
So much for the 54%-46% split.
That split was good enough for Donald Trump to win Ohio's electoral votes in two straight presidential elections, but not enough to satisfy the enormous appetite for power in the Ohio GOP legislature.
State Rep. Brian Stewart, a Republican from Pickaway County, has been the most outspoken critic of the Citizens Not Politicians plan, saying it is just a ploy by Democrats to spin the process in their favor.
He is the same state representative who last year authored his own constitutional amendment that appeared on an Aug. 8 special election ballot. It would have required future constitutional amendments in Ohio to achieve a 60% vote for passage instead of a simple majority.
Ohio voters rejected the idea of Stewart and his ally, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, by a wide margin.
COMMENTARY: Ohio's GOP just learned voters are not as gullible as they think
Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters in Ohio, said she thinks the Citizens Not Politicians ballot issue will be relatively easy to explain to voters.
"Ohioans intuitively understand that lawmakers act in their own self-interest," Miller said. "They understand fairness and believe in democracy.
"When lobbyists and politicians are in charge of drawing districts, the less democratic they are," Miller said. "At the end of the day, elected officials will draw districts that benefit themselves."
Miller said the coalition has "thousands" of volunteers already trained to circulate petitions and believes that, by the July deadline, they will have far more than the required number of signatures.
"This will be on the ballot," Miller said. "Change is coming."
