Julie Carr Smyth/AP Photo
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, right, and state Sen. Theresa Gavarone prepare for a meeting of the Ohio Ballot Board at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio, August 16, 2024.
After the Ohio state Supreme Court determined that Ohio’s gerrymandered congressional and legislative maps disproportionately favored Republicans, Citizens Not Politicians, a statewide coalition of civic, business, labor, and faith groups, steered an initiative to the ballot that would have handed redistricting decisions to a nonpartisan redistricting commission composed of Ohio citizens. The measure failed by seven percentage points.
With Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) losing his race for re-election and Donald Trump handily winning the state, it’s not surprising that a measure that appeared to upend the GOP’s power structure failed in this conservative stronghold. Citizens Not Politicians and a number of Democratic state lawmakers have pointed to the measure’s deceptive language as a major factor in its defeat. It’s a tactical maneuver Republicans have used before to further their statewide dominance and thwart direct democracy in the Buckeye State. Gov. Mike DeWine (R), however, still thinks a commission is a good idea, just not one led by citizens.
A five-member, Republican-controlled Ohio Ballot Board approved language indicating that the measure would “repeal constitutional protections against gerrymandering” when, in fact, it would have actually banned gerrymandering. It also claimed that the new taxpayer-funded commission would be “required to gerrymander the boundaries of state legislative and congressional districts.” This is also inaccurate, as the entity would have been established to put an end to unfairly drawn maps.
A Citizens Not Politicians’ breakdown of the measure’s actual purpose was far less convoluted: “Issue 1 will end gerrymandering by empowering citizens, not politicians, to draw fair districts using an open and transparent process.”
Several months before the election, the group had filed a lawsuit against the state ballot board and Frank LaRose, Ohio’s secretary of state, claiming the measure included “the most biased, inaccurate, and unconstitutional ballot language ever adopted by the Ohio Ballot Board.” A Columbus Dispatch editorial had noted that LaRose is “a key figure in a concerted and continuing Republican effort to confuse Ohioans and dilute the power of their votes.” An Ohio Capital Journal op-ed claimed, “He’s done it again. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose has deliberately sabotaged the ballot language of a citizens’ initiative on redistricting.”
In 2023, LaRose had consulted with a pro-life organization about the ballot language on that year’s abortion access ballot measure. He ended up substituting words like “unborn child” for “fetus.” After a lawsuit, the Ohio Supreme Court made only minor changes to the text. Voters passed the measure, 56 percent to 43 percent.
The Ohio Supreme Court had already addressed gerrymandering well before the coalition’s lawsuit. In 2022, the court invalidated one congressional map, finding that it “unduly favored” the Republican Party. In fact, the high court found that congressional maps had violated the state constitution’s prohibitions against gerrymandering five times between 2021 and 2022.
In a 4-3 September decision that echoed the 2023 case, the justices ruled that minor changes had to be made to the ballot measure and had to “make clear that the Ohio Supreme Court can review” a number of issues. But they did not identify any other language issues.
With the demise of the citizen-led initiative, DeWine wants to proceed with his plan, which resembles the framework that Iowa uses. It would require the creation of a nonpartisan group similar to Ohio’s Legislative Service Commission, which provides analyses of bills presented to the General Assembly, to draft maps that would need to be approved by the state legislature and the governor. DeWine and LaRose have seats on the existing Ohio Redistricting Commission, which has been embroiled in controversy. It’s controlled by the GOP, which has five seats; the Democrats have two.
Ohio has been a trifecta state since 2011, and the legislative districts drawn by Republican lawmakers have helped preserve their majorities in the state legislature. Of the members currently serving in the Ohio legislature, 66 members of the House are Republicans and 32 are Democrats. In the Senate, 26 members are Republicans; only seven are Democrats.
