Cincinnati Enquirer/Gannett: The threat of a 4-year map was supposed to inspire Ohio redistricting compromise. It didn’t

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. …

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.