Centerfield

Redistricting Reform in Ohio

A recent New York Times article mentioned eight states where new pushes for redistricting reform are underway. California is the most well-known example, but there is also Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island.

My home state of Ohio wasn't on the list. But we did have a nice op-ed article in this morning's Columbus Dispatch pitching for the issue. Below are a few excerpts.

Before he said what he had to, state Rep. James P. Trakas said what he meant.

Announcing he is running for secretary of state, the Cleveland-area Republican was asked if he favors removing politics from the process of drawing legislative and congressional districts.

Trakas smiled. "When we were a minority," he said, referring to Republicans, "I thought it was a great idea."

Then he spewed the party line, saying the process for configuring new districts every 10 years "is imperfect, but it works very well."

For Republicans, that is. And in the 1980s, it worked very well for Ohio Democrats. But a system that allows politicians to chose their constituents and ensures that incumbents can’t be beaten doesn’t serve democracy.

Nationally, the two parties have declared redistricting war and are on the cusp of mutually assured destruction. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, who compares unfavorably with a snake, started it in 2003 when he got his state’s GOP-controlled legislature to redraw congressional boundaries seven years earlier than scheduled. Running in new districts they couldn’t lose, Republicans picked up five more seats in the House.

Now Georgia Republicans are trying to redraw congressional lines five years earlier than scheduled. Democrats are threatening retribution in states they control, including Illinois, New Mexico and Louisiana. In 2003, Ohio GOP Chairman Robert T. Bennett contemplated reconfiguring Ohio’s congressional lines before the scheduled remapping in 2010, but decided not to get too greedy. Republicans already control 12 of the state’s 18 House seats.

Every 10 years, the five-member State Apportionment Board draws new Ohio House and Senate districts to reflect population shifts. Whichever party occupies two of the three offices of governor, secretary of state and auditor controls the board. Republicans, in control since 1991, have drawn a majority of House and Senate districts they can’t lose, packing Democrats in fewer districts that they can’t lose.

The General Assembly draws new congressional boundaries every 10 years, and because Republicans control both houses of the legislature, Ohio has 12 safe GOP districts and six safe Democratic districts.

The upshot: Competitive general elections for the state legislature and Congress, with a handful of exceptions, no longer exist in Ohio. In the November election, average victory margins were 44 points in the 18 congressional races, 35 points in the 16 Ohio Senate races, and 38 points in the 99 Ohio House races.

At best, Ohio’s system is anti-democratic. At worst, it is corrupt, protects politicians and is indefensible against charges that it deprives voters of choice.

Without the moderating influence of competitive general elections, Ohioans now are over-represented by partisan hard-liners and ideologues uninterested in compromise.

If Ohioans really want to reform government, they should follow Ahhnold’s lead and push for a constitutional amendment to terminate this awful system.