Remap panel to meet, but no congressional map expected

Oct. 27—COLUMBUS — The Republican-controlled Ohio Redistricting Commission will meet on Thursday with the full intention of again missing its Sunday deadline for passing a new congressional district map.

But that doesn't mean the reforms that voters approved in 2018 have failed, said Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio.

"It's not the initiatives that failed, but the mapmakers failed to live up to the promise made to voters ...," she said during a forum before the Columbus Metropolitan Club on Wednesday.

"We were hoping that everybody's better angels would prevail, that the spirit of this reform, which is about bipartisanship, transparency, and public engagement, would carry through in the implementation," she said. "That's not what we saw."

Those placed in charge of redrawing new state legislative and congressional maps following the 2020 U.S. Census have missed every constitutional deadline placed before them via ballot initiatives in 2015 and 2018.

Now the 5-2 GOP-majority commission has conceded that no map will be approved this week, punting back to the General Assembly as a whole. State lawmakers now face another, final deadline on Nov. 30 to pass a 10-year map with significant minority party buy-in or a partisan map with a simple majority vote that would last just four years before the process must start again.

Already looking ahead, Senate President Matt Huffman (R., Lima) announced that Senate Bill 258, sponsored by Sen. Rob McColley (R., Napoleon), will be the vehicle used to debate a map like any other bill. It contains no map proposal, which could come next week after the election.

Kyle Kondik, managing editor of the University of Virginia's political Crystal Ball and author of The Long Red Thread: How Democratic Dominance Gave Way to Republican Advantage in U.S. House Elections, said the four-year map option may be more an advantage to Republicans than a penalty.

He noted that voting shifts still occur in short periods of time, such as has been seen in the way the traditionally reliable Democratic Mahoning Valley has shifted more red.

"If you have the opportunity to go back and draw a new map every four years instead of 10, you can actually better account for some of these changes," Mr. Kondik said. "So in some ways, if you fall into this pattern in Ohio where instead of drawing a map every 10 years, we draw one every four and Republicans continue to have the advantage they do in the process, that can actually help them make better maps for themselves on a more regular basis. ...There's no federal prohibition that says congressional maps can only be drawn once every 10 years."

The General Assembly failed to even try to pass a bipartisan map by its initial deadline of Sept. 30, punting to the redistricting commission. That commission consists of Gov. Mike DeWine, Auditor Keith Faber, Secretary of State Frank LaRose, Senate President Matt Huffman, and House Speaker Bob Cupp, all Republicans, and the Democratic father-and-daughter team of Sen. Vernon Sykes and House Minority Leader Emilia Sykes.

While the panel will meet to discuss maps already submitted, including one from Senate Democrats, there will be no GOP majority proposal on which to hold a hearing and start discussions. Sunday's constitutional deadline is expected to pass without a vote.

The entire process is further complicated by the fact that Ohio will lose one of its current 16 congressional districts to a faster-growing state over the last decade.

Republicans control 12 of those 16 districts. One question is whether Republicans can create a 12-3 or even a 13-2 map.

The district now held by U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan in the politically shifting Mahoning Valley and the "snake on the lake" held by U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur could be most at risk, Mr. Kondik said.

He noted that it may be telling that Mr. Ryan is running in 2022 for the U.S. Senate seat to be vacated by Republican Sen. Rob Portman rather than seek re-election to the House.

Ms. Kaptur's district stretches along the Lake Erie shoreline 100 miles from Toledo to Cleveland without encompassing a single whole county, something that cannot happen under the constitutional reforms.

"I think Kaptur, in particular, might find herself in a Republican-leaning district," Mr. Kondik said.

Meanwhile, the Ohio Supreme Court will hear arguments on Dec. 8 in three challenges to the four-year Ohio House and Senate maps approved by the commission along party lines.

First Published October 27, 2021, 3:46pm