The threat of a 4-year map was supposed to inspire Ohio redistricting compromise. It didn't
Jessie Balmert
Knowing politicians tasked with drawing their own legislative districts would need an incentive to listen to their better angels, the authors of Ohio's 2014 redistricting reform included a penalty.
Without a bipartisan compromise, maps drawn by the seven-member Ohio Redistricting Commission would last only four years. The premise was lawmakers would hate the uncertainty of districts shifting every four to six years, and mapmakers would avoid the risk of a commission controlled by the other party.
"The impasse provision has risks for both sides. It is designed in such a way to encourage agreement," then-Senate President Keith Faber said of the redistricting reforms in December 2014. "I think that gives everybody sufficient risks to make everybody have sufficient negotiations to get the job done."
But Republicans on the Ohio Redistricting Commission approved a four-year map that would give the GOP a veto-proof majority in the Ohio Statehouse despite the objections of the commission's two Democrats.
"Clearly it wasn’t as big of a deterrent as it needed to be to urge the mapmakers to get back to work and figure it out," said Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio, one group that pushed for redistricting reform.
Faber, now state auditor and a member of the commission, found himself at the impasse he explained more than six years earlier: “After countless hours of trying, we faced unwillingness to compromise by some members which left us with a single choice to fulfill our constitutional duty.”
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Republicans justified the maps by saying Ohioans favored GOP candidates between 54% – the average vote total for GOP candidates in recent statewide elections – and 81% – the percentage of statewide races won by Republicans over the past decade – of the time. The GOP-approved maps give Republicans a 62-37 advantage in the House and 23-10 advantage in Senate or 64.4% of the Ohio Legislature.
Neither the carrot of a bipartisan victory nor the stick of a four-year map accomplished what authors of the 2014 reforms – and the 71% of Ohioans that voted for the anti-gerrymandering initiative in 2015 – envisioned. Those authors included current Senate President Matt Huffman, R-Lima; Sen. Vernon Sykes, D-Akron; Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose and Faber – all of whom are on the current commission.
The night ended in frustration and finger-pointing. And in four years, they'll have to do it again.
Why would you want a 4-year map?
Bipartisanship aside, maps that last for four or six years have certain political advantages, said David Niven, an associate professor of political science at the University of Cincinnati and former speechwriter for Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland.
What was intended as a penalty could start to look like a prize if you're the political party in power. For example, if Delaware County continues to gain Democratic voters, Republicans could draw a new map to adjust for that shift in four years.
"It's hardly a punishment to say you can pick whatever districts you want now and then you get to pick it again," Niven said.
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Republicans had every incentive to keep as many seats in the Ohio Legislature as possible. Their veto-proof majority has helped overturn Gov. Mike DeWine's attempts to curb their limits on health orders. House Speaker Bob Cupp, R-Lima, is term-limited but Huffman can remain in his leadership role through 2024 if GOP senators reelect him.
To reach the partisan balance voters demanded, Republicans needed to give up 16 or 17 seats in the Legislature, said House Minority Leader Emilia Sykes, D-Akron. "That is a hard thing for them to do. That was a political reality. I knew that. They knew that."
Huffman said Democrats had a reason to avoid bargaining, too. If Democrats can win any of the three statewide offices on the Ohio Redistricting Commission – governor, secretary of state and auditor – then they could control, or better influence, the process in four years.
"It's possible that the calculus on the other side is rather than take this map for 10 years, we think we have a good shot at winning races," Huffman said Thursday. "Now, I don't know what's in the hearts and minds of the folks on the other side. All I can tell you is that, you know, I think they knew that we weren't going to accept the map that was the second version of what they offered."
Sykes said suggesting that Democrats were acting in bad faith was "laughable at best and dishonorable at worst."
For Huffman, it also came down to timing. "Do I think that the four-year map is enough of an incentive? Maybe, if the process would have been allowed to play out on a timeframe that was anticipated."
Sen. Vernon Sykes, D-Akron, said over time, the risk of adopting four-year state legislative maps will act as a deterrent, but not right now.
"As long as the Republican Party has a stranglehold on the legislature and state politics, they will exploit their supermajority to maintain their power and influence," said Sykes, a co-chair of the commission.
Why wouldn't you want a four-year map?
Besides the praise for statesmanship, approving a 10-year map would have had several advantages.
For one, it would have provided security for both parties, knowing that the next election wouldn't upend their mapmaking power. The 2022 elections will determine whether the GOP's vote was a smart gamble.
Democrats face an uphill battle to win seats on the Ohio Redistricting Commission because each of the statewide candidates is a GOP incumbent and one doesn't have a Democratic challenger yet. Republicans currently control most of state government.
More:Ohio lawmakers likely to miss first congressional redistricting deadline
A bipartisan compromise also might have avoided a lawsuit. Several groups, ranging from Fair Maps Ohio that championed the ballot initiatives to the Ohio Democratic Party, are pondering legal challenges.
"Whether we have four- or 10-year maps, the Constitution still requires that they reflect the statewide political preferences of Ohio voters over the previous decade and don’t favor or disfavor one political party," Vernon Sykes said. "Those are criteria we can’t get around.”
Any challenge would be reviewed by Ohio Supreme Court where Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor is seen as the swing vote on a divided court. The court can't redraw the maps, but it could send the commission back to the drawing board.
"The biggest danger is the court looks at the map and sees it's egregiously not proportional," Niven said.
Another disadvantage of four-year maps is lawmakers might have to move or compete in new districts, disrupting their lives twice in one decade.
"To think that we have to go through all of this again in just four years is another way that government is dysfunctional," Emilia Sykes said. "This is a dysfunctional thing to create this kind of anxiety to occur all over again in four years."
Jessie Balmert is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Akron Beacon Journal, Cincinnati Enquirer, Columbus Dispatch and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.