Testimony to the Ohio Redistricting Commission 

By Mia Lewis, Common Cause Ohio

October 31, 2025

Co-chairs and members of the Ohio Redistricting Commission. My name is Mia Lewis, I’m associate director at Common Cause Ohio, an organization that still believes in the promise and potential of an inclusive and sturdy democracy. 

I am exercising my right to testify knowing that what I say will not have any impact on the decisions you’ve already made in secret, far away from the prying eyes of the public, your constituents, Ohio voters. I’m paying you the respect of following rules of committee decorum, while you do not feel the obligation to pay me the respect of following the Ohio Constitution – the law of the land.

There’s a lot of anger and frustration in this room, and it’s not just the result of this most recent betrayal. The anger and frustration has been years – decades – in the making. We’re not asking for a favor, we’re asking you to obey the law. 

Like the rest of us, every one of you understood the purpose of the redistricting reform ballot measures in 2015 and 2018 – to end gerrymandering. Every one of you knows what gerrymandering is – and what it isn’t. 

In 2021, right off the bat, commissioners decided to ignore the most fundamental elements of the new law: transparency, meaningful public participation, maps that delivered representational fairness to Ohio voters. 

Secretary LaRose, you called the first calculations of the commission “assenine.” Governor, you wondered aloud if what was being proposed was even constitutional. The Ohio Supreme Court struck down your rigged districts seven times! But hey ho, no worries, you plowed ahead, set on your course of ignoring the law, ignoring the court, ignoring the voters, and demonstrating to the world what gerrymandering is and why politicians should not be involved in drawing district lines. 

Clearly, the reforms of 2015 and 2018 were not strong enough. They did not unequivocally remove politicians from the redistricting process. And so, Ohio voters who’d had their hearts broken and their districts rigged went back to the drawing board. The Citizens Not Politicians ballot initiative was an attempt to finally, FINALLY create a redistricting process where citizens – not politicians – were in charge and a fair outcome for all was required in the law itself. 

The idea of required fairness was so existentially threatening to lawmakers, that they – you – pulled out every trick in the book to make sure it didn’t pass. How risky it would have been for you if maps were fair, if VOTERS had a say in the process, if incumbent electeds had no more power than any other voter when it came to drawing district lines. 

One of the arguments made by the Governor and others during the run up to the vote on the Citizens Not Politicians amendment was that Ohio already has good redistricting rules – rules that require transparency, meaningful public participation, and fair maps. 

Good to know! Now it’s 2025 and what do we get? The same old same old: maps made in secret, this charade of a hearing, and a map that is gerrymandered up the wazoo. 

You politicians have been given enough chances. Today you have shown all of us, all of Ohio, politicians cannot be involved in drawing district lines. This process doesn’t work. The system is broken. The evidence? Right here on the easel. There is no better poster child for the need for an independent citizens redistricting commission than what is on display here today. 

A map like this could only have been drawn in secret – which is, by the way, not just a violation of the Ohio Constitution, but also a violation of Ohio sunshine law. 

A map deliberated in public would not look like it was designed by a dizzy toddler. It would not pair Delaware county with Van Wert, Franklin with Highland, and Hamilton with Clinton. It would not split the cities of Wooster, and Mansfield – let alone Cincinnati. And it could not purposefully shore up the district of an incumbent who was getting worried that his margin was looking too thin. 

What this commission still fails to understand is that deliberating in public makes the maps better. These maps and districts are not your private toys to be bartered and tweaked and traded. 

When you vote on this map today, you or your party may “win” – but what in fact is your victory? Because if you win the fight to gerrymander Ohio’s maps but you lose our democracy, what then do you have?  

I close by saying, the people in this room will never, ever stop fighting for a fair map. We will never stop fighting for fairness to preserve our democracy – in Ohio, and in the United States of America.