You don’t have to have a genius level IQ to figure out why Ohio’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, and the Republican supermajority in the Ohio General Assembly, are in such a panic over the Citizens Not Politicians constitutional amendment that will be on the November ballot.
Any reasonably bright grade school kid could figure out why they are so distressed.
This is the adult version of the King of the Hill playground game.
The ballot issue — placed on the ballot after a massive statewide petition drive — would replace the current politician-dominated redistricting process with a 15-member commission made up of five Republicans, five Democrats, and five voters not affiliated with any party.
The only qualification for commissioners is that they can’t be current or former elected officials, lobbyists, or political party officials. Maps would be produced after a long, open process where anyone can participate and follow the process online or in public hearings — unlike now, where maps can be closed behind closed doors.
Ohio Republicans hate this idea because it takes the power to draw Ohio’s legislative district lines away from the GOP elected officials in the Statehouse who have lived for decades off of district maps that have preserved their veto-proof supermajority.
RELATED: DeWine blasts redistricting amendment on fall ballot
Republican legislators from heavily gerrymandered districts — where many of them run for re-election with no opposition whatsoever — are, naturally, loathe to give up their absolute power.
This is why, on July 31, DeWine called the Statehouse press corps into his office and launched a long, pointed attack on the Citizens Not Politicians ballot issue, vowing to overturn it in the fairly likely event that it is passed by Ohio voters next fall.
DeWine, who has often said he thinks politicians should be taken out of the process, called the ballot issue “horrible,” saying Ohio would end up with “gerrymandering in the extreme.” He attributed this to issues with voting patterns; Citizens Not Politicians says voting patters are not the primary factor in drawing maps.
He said if it passes, he and/or the Ohio legislature will come back in January and put another redistricting amendment on next year’s ballot — one modeled after the “Iowa plan,” a plan that would (act surprised here) leave the final decision on legislative maps in the hands of elected officials.
It is rather hard to imagine why Ohio voters would approve one redistricting plan this November and then replace it next year, before it has been implemented.
Democrats and voting rights groups were left scratching their head over DeWine’s press conference denouncing Citizens Not Politicians.
They said that DeWine in recent years has been part of the problem, not part of the solution.
The governor is a member of the seven-member Ohio Redistricting Commission, the body which — since voted in by Ohioans in 2015 and 2017 — is responsible for map-making.
Two years ago, the commission — made up of five Republicans and two Democrats — submitted seven different plans, all of which were rejected as unconstitutional by a four-member majority of the Ohio Supreme Court.
Seven times, DeWine voted with his fellow Republicans in favor of the unconstitutional maps.
Not surprisingly, that makes his critics question how sincere DeWine is when he says he wants to take politics out of redistricting.
“The governor had seven times to show leadership and stop gerrymandering,’’ said Allison Russo, the Columbus Democrat who is minority leader of the Ohio House. “He failed. Now he wants to ignore demands for a citizen-led process that takes away the ability of politicians to manipulate their own maps.”
In 2022, Republican Maureen O’Connor was chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court. She sided with the three Democrats on the court in ruling the seven maps unconstitutional.
O’Connor couldn’t run for re-election that year because of Ohio’s judicial age limit law, but, after leaving office, she immediately became the de facto leader of Citizens Not Politicians, even writing much of the language of the ballot issue.
LISTEN: Retired Ohio Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor talks fall's anti-gerrymandering amendment
Thursday, on WVXU’s Cincinnati Edition, O’Connor explained that her support is not about partisan politics.
In New York State, she said, it was Democrats “putting their thumb on the scale of map-making.” The Democratic maps were declared unconstitutional, she said.
If Democrats were in charge in Ohio, they would be stopped from manipulating maps, she said.
“It doesn’t matter which party is doing it; it is just wrong,’’ O’Connor said.
