The following article was originally published in the Ohio Capital Journal and published on News5Cleveland.com under a content-sharing agreement.
The office of Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose has drafted ballot language for the Ohio Ballot Board to consider Friday that supporters of an anti-gerrymandering amendment say is deceptive and unconstitutional. The Ballot Board decides the text of proposed amendments that voters actually see on their ballots when they vote.
The anti-gerrymandering amendment before Ohio voters in November, according to the language drafted by LaRose’s office, would “eliminate the longstanding ability of Ohio citizens to hold their representatives accountable for establishing fair state legislative and congressional districts.”
The Citizens Not Politicians group that authored the ballot initiative and collected more than 535,000 necessary signatures from Ohio voters to get the measure on the ballot, has proposed their own language for the ballot as well, saying it would remove politicians from the redistricting process in favor of a citizen board.
The group is proposing a redistricting amendment that would replace Ohio’s politician-led redistricting commission with a citizen-led commission made up of Republicans, Democrats and independents. Currently, the Ohio Secretary of State is one of the politicians sitting on Ohio’s redistricting commission, along with the governor, the Ohio Auditor, two lawmakers from the majority party and two lawmakers from the minority party.
The language drafted by the Secretary of State’s Office claims in its proposed title that the amendment’s purpose is, “To create an appointed redistricting commission not elected by or subject to removal by the voters of the state.”
Moreover, the draft language says its purpose is to “repeal constitutional protections against gerrymandering approved by nearly three-quarters of Ohio electors participating in the statewide elections of 2015 and 2018.”
Backers say the amendment is actually intended to protect voters against gerrymandering by removing politicians who stand to benefit from the process, and to not allow them to continue drawing gerrymandered district maps.
After the 2015 and 2018 reforms were passed by voters, Republican politicians on the Ohio Redistricting Commission including Ohio Secretary of State LaRose repeatedly voted for Statehouse and U.S. Congressional district maps that were declared unconstitutional gerrymanders by a bipartisan majority on the Ohio Supreme Court. Nevertheless, Ohio voters were forced to use the maps as the politicians refused to produce a maps that reflected voting preferences of Ohioans.
The Ohio Secretary of State’s Office further claims in its proposed language that the new amendment would also “limit the right of Ohio citizens to freely express their opinions to members of the commission or to commission staff regarding the redistricting process or proposed redistricting plans.”
It claims the amendment would “prohibit any citizen from filing a lawsuit challenging a redistricting plan in any court, except if the lawsuit challenges the proportionality standard applied by the commission, and then only before the Ohio Supreme Court,” and that new “taxpayer-funded costs” would be imposed by the amendment, with “an unlimited amount for legal expenses incurred by the commission in any related litigation.”
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine recently publicly opposed the ballot measure because of its emphasis on proportionality, alleging there was no way the measure could work as written. In opposing the measure, he said whether or not it passes in November, he’s considering going to the legislature to adapt Iowa’s redistricting process for Ohio. Iowa’s process leaves lawmakers with final say over maps.
The proposed constitutional amendment penned by Citizens Not Politicians calls for a 15-person redistricting commission made up of citizens, rather than the Ohio Redistricting Commission that is currently made up entirely of elected officials.
The language proposed by Citizens Not Politicians to the ballot board states the proposed amendment would “require that the commission consist of 15 members who have demonstrated the absence of any disqualifying conflicts of interest and who have shown an ability to conduct the redistricting process with impartiality, integrity and fairness.”
The amendment would “provide that each redistricting plan shall contain single-member districts that are geographically contiguous, comply with federal law, closely correspond to statewide partisan preferences of Ohio voters and preserve communities,” according to the Citizens Not Politicians proposed language.
The current Ohio Redistricting Commission made up of politicians produced six different Statehouse maps and two congressional maps over the two years it did its work. Five of the Statehouse maps were ruled unconstitutional by the Ohio Supreme Court and neither of the congressional maps passed constitutional muster, according to the state’s highest court. The second of the congressional maps remains the state’s congressional district map, despite being found to be unduly partisan by the state supreme court.
The redistricting commission was criticized for disregarding hours of testimony from hundreds of Ohio citizens, and numerous citizen and group-proposed maps in favor of maps written by legislative staffers, and disregarding the authority of the Ohio Supreme Court when they were ordered to redraw maps within deadlines and utilize paid independent mapmakers coordinated by the court.
Former Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, a leader for Citizens Not Politicians, who has called for reforms to redistricting since she left the bench, said the Secretary of State’s proposed language violates the Ohio Constitution.
“The self-dealing politicians who have rigged the legislative maps now want to rig the Nov. 5 election by illegally manipulating the ballot language,” O’Connor said in a statement. “We will make our case for fair and accurate language before the Ballot Board and if necessary take it to court.”
O’Connor’s statement claims the language proposed by the Secretary of State’s Office violates an article of the Ohio Constitution that prohibits ballot language that “is such as to mislead, deceive, or defraud voters,” according to the law.
Ohio law also states ballot titles “shall give a true and impartial statement of the measures in such language that the ballot title shall not be likely to create prejudice for or against the measure.”
It’s not the first time even in the last year that ballot language has been criticized as a misleading representation of the proposed initiative. Last year’s reproductive rights ballot measure went through the same process, with language written by Ohio Secretary of State staff approved as the language to appear on the ballots.
The creators of the ballot measure sued, with the Ohio Supreme Court approving the ballot language, but sending it back to the board for small changes.
Despite the language, which critics said intentionally misrepresented the reproductive rights amendment, the measure passed with 57% of the vote last November.
State Secretary of State LaRose is the head of the Ohio Ballot Board that will consider the language on Friday. The board is also made up of Republican state Sen. Theresa Gavarone, Democratic state Sen. Paula Hicks-Hudson, Democratic state Rep. Terrence Upchurch and citizen-member William Morgan.
A spokesperson for the Secretary of State’s Office did not respond to request for comment on the language Thursday afternoon.
