Theodore Decker: Ohio redistricting effort, beset by partisanship, might go something like this
Facing a looming deadline to draw new state House and Senate maps, the seven-member Ohio Redistricting Commission promised this week to get the job done, while revealing very little about how, exactly, it plans to get the job done.
Commission members did not detail on Tuesday how they will produce maps that meet both technical requirements and anti-gerrymandering provisions, as ordered by the Ohio Supreme Court. They didn't say how the public could offer feedback on the maps once they are drafted. They wouldn't even say when they planned to meet next.
That didn't exactly set observers at ease.
"These folks are not used to working in a bipartisan fashion, and that was really clear in September," said Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio and longtime redistricting reform advocate. "What we would like to see is bipartisan discussion about the maps in public so that they're more likely to come to better maps."
Instead, it looks as though we're forced to conjure the process with our imagination. So, if you will, imagine that it is one day before the commission's new deadline.
By the time we join them, they have been at it for many hours.
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"We pledged to the people of Ohio to take the ruling by the Ohio Supreme Court to heart and to move forward in our goal to redraw these maps in a bipartisan fashion," says Gov. Mike DeWine, a member of the commission. "We should be sending a message that this is not some game but a serious bipartisan effort."
"If you feel that way," Sen. Vernon Sykes, one of two Democrats on the commission, says, "perhaps you should not have said this, and I quote: 'Before we have this debate about what we should be doing, we ought to at least play this game out a little bit and see how the Supreme Court interprets what's in the Ohio Constitution.'"
"Poor choice of words," DeWine says.
"We don't have the luxury of time to rehash these old debates," says Rep. Allison Russo, D-Upper Arlington. Russo is the commission's newest member and as such, appears to possess a modicum of positivity that her colleagues do not. She appears to be holding out hope that all is not already lost.
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"We all know whose fault this really is," says Senate President Matt Huffman. "The Census Bureau. I've said it before and I'll say it again: 'That process, at least the way it was designed, just didn’t get to happen.'"
"But you're correct, we should move on," Huffman says. Echoing remarks he made in October, he says, "at some point a decision has to be made and somebody has to do the work to get to the decision. It is time to make that decision, right now, on this particular matter so we can move on to the next."
"Agreed," says Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose. "We have been on this particular point long enough, and need to bring the matter to a vote."
So they do. Remarkably, partisan lines fall away. The vote is 7-0 in favor!
"It is the decision of this commission that colored pencils, not crayons, shall be used to demarcate the newly drawn districts on the revised maps, if and when our staffers reach that point," says House Speaker Robert R. Cupp, co-chair of the commission.
"From a personal standpoint, I'd just like to say this proves state government is taking redistricting seriously," he adds. "Colored pencils impart a certain professionalism that crayons just do not have. And I think we can all agree that in the eyes of the public, we don't want to look childish."
@Theodore_Decker
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio redistricting: Can Republicans, Democrats agree on fair map?
