So many questions about what’s up with Ohio!
Republicans chose their own map as the starting point for the redistricting commission. Were Republicans given a majority on the redistricting commission? Otherwise, I don’t see how the Rs could push that through.
They are required to have 3 public hearings, and they chose 3 business days in a row, starting with the first one today. I would say that’s short notice, but it’s really no advance notice at all.
Can someone from Ohio explain how this can possibly be legal? Is it legal in Ohio to just say fuck you to the courts?
Paging Ohio peeps! Paging Marc Elias!
Despite objections from Democrats on Ohio’s Redistricting Commission, Republicans have chosen their own plan as the panel’s working document. The maps’ partisan breakdowns are 62-37 GOP-to-Democratic in the Ohio House and 23-10 in the Senate.
By @nckevnshttps://t.co/kwdEpVcfMJ
— Ohio Capital Journal (@OhioCapJournal) September 21, 2023
https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2023/09/21/ohio-redistricting-commission-selects-gop-working-map-sets-public-hearings/
The Republican members of Ohio’s redistricting commission set aside their bickering long enough to introduce a new legislative map Wednesday. Despite objections from Democrats on the panel, Republicans adopted their plan as the commission’s working document. The maps’ partisan breakdowns are 62-37 GOP-to-Democratic in the Ohio House and 23-10 in the Senate.
The commission briefly weighed a pair of legislative maps proposed Tuesday by House Minority Leader Allison Russo and Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio. Republican members declined to include the proposal as an alternative working draft.
The state constitution requires the commission hold at least three public hearings around Ohio to discuss their proposal. The commission approved the following meeting schedule:
- Friday Sept. 22 at Deer Creek State Park in Mt. Sterling southwest of Columbus
- Monday Sept. 25 at Punderson State Park east of Cleveland
- Tuesday Sept. 26 in the Senate finance hearing room at the Ohio Statehouse
The commission has set each meeting to begin at 10 a.m.
Update from Democracy Docket (thanks Scott)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Wednesday, Sept. 20, during the Ohio Redistricting Commission’s (ORC) first meeting since it was reconstituted, the ORC voted 4-2 along party-lines to use legislative maps proposed by Republicans as the ORC’s working draft, which will be subject to public review.
The maps would maintain the Republican stranglehold on the Legislature, due to egregious partisan gerrymandering. The Republicans’ Senate proposal contains 23 Republican seats, compared to just 10 Democratic seats. The partisan discrepancy was no different in Republicans’ House map, which would contain 62 Republican districts and 37 Democratic districts. Currently, Democrats hold just 32 House seats and seven Senate seats, compared to 67 and 26 Republican seats, respectively.
The Ohio Supreme Court has struck down the Republican commissioners’ legislative maps five separate times for being partisan gerrymanders in favor of Republicans, but Republicans’ delay tactics forced Ohioans to vote under illegal maps in 2022.
Today’s vote took place during the ORC’s first meeting in over a year, after last week’s meeting was delayed because Republicans on the commission couldn’t agree on a co-chair. Prior to today’s meeting, Ohio Auditor of State Keith Faber (R) was finally announced as the Republican co-chair. Ohio Senate Minority Leader Nickie J. Antonio (D) was selected as the Democratic co-chair at the start of the meeting.
The GOP-backed proposals come a day after Democrats on the commission released their own legislative maps, which the ORC voted down today, also along party lines. Introduced by Antonio and Ohio House Minority Leader Allison Russo (D), the maps would have drastically leveled the playing field of the currently gerrymandered Legislature as Democrats would have held 43 House seats and 14 Senate seats, while Republicans would have held 56 and 19 seats, respectively.
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) previously said that the commission should have maps approved by Sept. 22, but that timeline has been thrown into doubt after last week’s delays and the COVID-19 diagnosis of Gov. Mike DeWine (R), who also serves on the ORC. DeWine virtually tuned in to today’s meeting, but did not vote. Russo and Antonio have said that they don’t expect the process to be complete until mid-October.
Also on a party-line vote, the ORC scheduled three public meetings, which will all take place in the next week. Russo and Antonio, who voted against the adopted meeting schedule and the Republican-backed maps, argued that the timeline was rushed and that the locations were not spread out in a way that was conducive to all Ohioans.
Open thread.
Villago Delenda Est
The American Fascist Party needs to be deposited in the dustbin of history.
Another Scott
Elias’s DemocracyDocket has more.
We have to fight them every single day.
Cheers,
Scott.
Omnes Omnibus
The Ohio GOP is corrupt and evil.
MobiusKlein
@Villago Delenda Est:
Why do you hate dust that much?
Omnes Omnibus
@MobiusKlein: Allergies. You unsympathetic bastard.
artem1s
Yes, because we have a weak, term limited Governor who has no pull with the MAGAt and Chamber of Commerce GOP in the state. DeWine is under direct orders from the Catholic Diocese of OH to relentlessly push forced birth, anti-LGBTQ legislation or he’s going to be outed as helping the coverup of pedophilia priest while he was the AG (Cleveland Diocese of Ohio just released an anti-LGBTQ policy statement this week). And this stonewalling is happening in order to help the messaging of SoS, LaRose’ (who is effectively running the state) Senate campaign to unseat Sherrod Brown. The GQP in Ohio has effectively ignored two voter supported issues that require redrawing the gerrymandered districts for over a decade now.
mrmoshpotato
Do you like winning in court and seeing Lady Justice slap Rethuglicans?
Eunicecycle
Don’t get me started. It’s so frustrating to have a legislature that just ignores the will of the people. With a Supreme Court that includes the governor’s son, who refuses to recuse himself when his dad is involved in a case, it feels hopeless.
Dangerman
What’s wrong with Ohio? They don’t want a dreaded case of “Californiaitis”; that has severe symptoms for their side. If near extinction isn’t your thing, you cheat. If cheating isn’t enough, you start the dick moves (not named after Richard Nixon). If dick moves isn’t enough, it’s time for a full on screw job.
Suzanne
I would have considered Ohio for our relocation except for the terrible governance.
Gravenstone
That’s basically what they did during the recent redistricting drama. State supreme court told them multiple times to redraw and they put forth essentially the same flawed maps. Eventually ran the clock out. And now the supreme court has flipped to be Republican dominated, so even that “roadblock” has been removed.
BruceFromOhio
IOKIYAR. There is ZERO accountability in this little fascist shit-hole.
@Suzanne: Until there is a major upheaval by the electorate, nothing will change. And unfortunately too many of these knucklehead “buckeyes” think this anti-democratic bullshit governance is just fine, thank you. I wouldn’t move here. We look forward to leaving.
SuzieC
Yes. That’s why citizen activists are again circulating petitions to amend the Constitution to put a true independent redistricting commission on the ballot, modeled after Michigan’s.
randy khan
I am not an expert in Ohio geography or demographics, but it seems odd that there are no hearings near either Cincinnati or Toledo. (With three, you can’t hit all of the major population centers, so you’d have to skip one of them.)
WaterGirl
@SuzieC: reading about this makes me want to tear my hair out. In can only imagine the frustrations Ohio peeps must feel.
Tinare
The GOP may suck at governing, but they have their shit together when it comes to gerrymandering or vote supression.
wjca
Alabama has done much the same. Except for the detail that Alabama is defying Federal courts.
I guess Ohio Republicans are Alabama wannabes. Such ambition!
Eunicecycle
@wjca: Before we could say, “At least we’re not Alabama!” but that’s not true anymore. Thank God for Mississippi.
ETA apologies to the good citizens of Alabama and Mississippi. It’s a lame joke.
SuzieC
@WaterGirl: Yes, but all we can do is keep fighting, every single day. We’re in it for the long haul.
Mel
@randy khan: Likely because Cincinnati (city, not suburbs) is strongly Dem.
pthomas745
How can we steal everything if you are going to be watching? /s
Mel
@WaterGirl: I am absolutely sick over this.
Burnspbesq
Cry “Havoc” and let slip the litigators.
WaterGirl
@Mel: I’m not sure there’s a word to describe how brazen this is.
catfishncod
@Eunicecycle: It’s okay. When both sides get tired of ragging on the other, they turn on Arkansas.
Did I mention how happy I am to live in California now?
Villago Delenda Est
@Eunicecycle: I am always delighted when you de-lurk. For one thing, your nym is a great little pun. For another thing, my mom was named Eunice, PBUH.
Villago Delenda Est
@catfishncod: Alas, my dad’s family was from Arkansas (he was born there over a century ago). Amazingly, WWII got him to move away and he only went back for visits and funerals.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus: And the Redleg delivers the sharp rebuke!
Roger Moore
@artem1s:
I suspect some of the problem is with the design of the redistricting commission itself. Here in California, the initiative that switched to an independent commission spent at least as much effort trying to protect the commission from political influence as it did on defining how the actual districts are to be drawn. There’s a complex procedure to carry this out, the highlights of which are:
Also, very importantly, the state legislature has no power over the final decision. If it’s challenged in court, it goes immediately to the State Supreme Court to avoid lengthy challenges.
RevRick
Two of the things that were consistently decried in the Hebrew Bible were moving boundary stones and false weights and measures. Moving a boundary stone was cheating the neighbor of his/her land that could be used for crops or pasture. The false weights and measures were cheating buyers and sellers in two directions, the buyers by giving less than the true amount for their purchase; the sellers by shortchanging the income they were due for their produce. And what this steady nibbling away at their income eventually led to was chronic poverty and indebtedness, which ultimately led to landlessness.
Gerrymandering is the political equivalent of the economic shenanigans the Torah and the prophets condemned. But our Supreme Court’s okay with that. Nice country we’ve got. Be a shame if the law turns a blind eye to its own citizens.
Eunicecycle
@Villago Delenda Est: there aren’t too many of us anymore! I have to admit, it’s not my IRL name, but it is a play on my last name.
sab
I am from Ohio and I do not know what the fuck is going on in the legislature ( did I tell you I am from Ohio? ) This is us. Republican not a democracy
ETA I still think we are a purple state but we have lost control of democracy.
columbusqueen
@Omnes Omnibus: There’s an understatement.
columbusqueen
@columbusqueen: Paging OhioMom: call me! Need to plan our meet up so we can all vent.
Raoul Paste
With the advent of Trump, the Republican ethos has become “do whatever you can get away with”
It’s really annoying to live on a suburban street of idiots who are aggressively pushing to take away women’s rights. I have to drive-by their idiotic yard signs every day.
Shana
@randy khan: And two of them are in State Parks which strikes me as a bit odd. But maybe an Ohioan can weigh in who knows either park and whether or not that allows for (theoretically) more people or is it designed to make it difficult for people without cars?
Ang
“Is it legal in Ohio to just say fuck you to the courts?” Pretty much so.
In 1997 the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that Ohio’s method of funding public school was unconstitutional (DeRolph V. State). The legislature basically ignored it for years. From what I understand, eventually the issue came up again and the court (roughly) said that the school funding method was still unconstitutional but it’s up to the legislature to fix it, so hey, what can we do?