The Plain Dealer/Cleveland.com: Ohio’s redistricting process gets an ‘F’ from national group

Ohio’s redistricting process has received a failing grade from a national good-government group, which deemed the state’s congressional and legislative maps to be “unmitigated disasters” overall.

That’s according to a new redistricting “report card” for states released Wednesday by Common Cause, a non-partisan but left-leaning watchdog group based in Washington, D.C.

The report, authored by personnel from Common Cause and similar organizations, noted how Ohio voters last year voted on the state’s congressional delegation and most of the state legislature using district lines that were found to be unconstitutionally gerrymandered by the Ohio Supreme Court. That’s because the Republican-controlled Ohio Redistricting Commission and state lawmakers “ran out the clock” and got their maps used anyway, the report stated.

“This redistricting cycle in Ohio provided a textbook example of the lengths elected officials will go to prioritize partisanship over fair representation for the public,” the report stated, adding that Republican lawmakers and redistricting commission members showed a “complete disregard… for the rule of law in Ohio.”

The Common Cause report doesn’t specifically mention the newly passed state legislative maps, which were unanimously passed by the redistricting commission that consists of five Republicans and two Democrats. However, Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio, told cleveland.com/The Plain Dealer late last month that the new legislative redistricting plan, like the previous one, gave Republicans an advantage in more districts than they were entitled to under the state’s redistricting rules.

Turcer said Common Cause Ohio mulled filing suit against the redistricting commission after the new maps were passed – not just over the constitutionality of the plan itself, but also to assert that the commission’s closed-door negotiations violated state open-meetings law.

 

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