Ohio Gov. DeWine lost all credibility when he repeatedly voted for illegally gerrymandered maps

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine talks with the press. (Photo by Graham Stokes for the Ohio Capital Journal / Republish photo only with original story.)

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine clutching his pearls Wednesday morning about predetermined partisan outcomes after he forced unconstitutional district maps on voters that gave his party 67 out of 99 Ohio House seats and 26 out of 33 Ohio Senate seats in a 56-44 state was hilarious, absurd and pathetic.

Even more striking was how condescending and insulting it was for DeWine to lecture Ohio voters about gerrymandering after he went along with the unconstitutional gerrymandering of districts seven times in defiance of Ohio voters and a bipartisan Ohio Supreme Court in 2021 and 2022.

Probably the worst part of that was DeWine acknowledging that gerrymandering leads to extremist legislatures who get elected mostly in primaries because the outcomes of general elections are predetermined: So he knows what’s wrong, but when he had his chance to do something about it, he supported gerrymandering anyway.

Now the governor is using his bully pulpit to try to disparage an anti-gerrymandering proposal heading to Ohio voters this November. That proposed amendment would kick politicians like DeWine out of the mapmaking process in favor of a 15-member citizen redistricting commission. The effort is led by two bipartisan former Ohio Supreme Court justices — spearheaded by retired Republican Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor. Blissfully lacking all self-awareness as well as basic comprehension of the plan he claimed to have studied carefully, DeWine called it “horrible.”

DeWine attempted to gaslight Ohioans into thinking that the citizen commission plan would lead to the worst gerrymandering Ohio has ever seen, after DeWine joined Statehouse Republicans in forcing voters to cast ballots in 2022 under the worst gerrymandered maps Ohio has ever seen.

For the last two years, Ohio has had Statehouse lawmakers seated in unconstitutionally gerrymandered districts. Nevertheless, with a straight face, DeWine proposed an “Iowa plan” that he said he would work with gerrymandered Ohio lawmakers to introduce. If that Iowa model is followed, it would leave gerrymandered Ohio lawmakers with final authority over maps.

The “Iowa plan” DeWine went on and on about requires a plan to be first developed by their non-partisan Legislative Services Agency, which is then sent to the legislature for approval. If that plan fails to get lawmakers’ support, the Legislative Services Agency has to develop a second plan adjusting for lawmakers’ problems with the first plan. If that second plan is rejected by lawmakers or the governor, a third plan is submitted by the LSA, but under the third plan, lawmakers can make any changes they want. So, if lawmakers don’t like the maps, all they have to do is keep rejecting them and run out the clock and then they can draw whatever maps they want.

Running out the clock to impose unconstitutionally gerrymandered maps is exactly what Ohio Republican politicians did in 2021 and 2022.

DeWine evaded questions about the fact that his proposal would leave politicians in charge by trying to be cute that it’s only the criteria for mapmaking that he likes about the Iowa plan. But DeWine is proposing to work with lawmakers to draft the plan — gerrymandered lawmakers. If gerrymandered lawmakers start with a model plan that leaves final authority over maps in their hands, what are the chances they will strip that out and give up their authority? Does DeWine think Ohioans are idiots?

By trying to focus his comments on the criteria, DeWine spent the bulk of his time criticizing requirements for proportionality proposed by Citizens Not Politicians — meaning requirements that the districts reflect the actual political preferences of voters. The maps DeWine helped force on Ohio voters left us with a 67-seat Republican supermajority House in a 56% Republican simple majority state. So I’m not surprised that DeWine doesn’t give a damn about proportionality.

The “Iowa plan” doesn’t mention proportionality in criteria at all. Instead it emphasizes that districts be compact and contiguous and preserve political subdivisions. It prohibits intentionally favoring a party, incumbent, person or group by disallowing political data from being used in map-drawing, but it should be noted that it’s fairly simple to draw a heavily politicized map by just using geography and not data.

The Citizens Not Politicians plan that DeWine disparaged as “horrible” requires districts be contiguous, preserve communities of interest, and that they be relatively proportional: within three percentage points of overall voter preferences.

As I have written before, fair maps ought to minimize the number of seats that have to be drawn safe and make the number of those districts proportional, and evenly maximize the number of competitive districts.

DeWine was confronted Wednesday with the fact that the primary frustration of Ohio voters with our currently gerrymandered districts is that they do not reflect Ohioans’ actual political preferences, and he was asked if the Iowa plan would produce proportional maps.

“I think they would,” is all DeWine could weakly offer. Sure. If we only trust Ohio’s gerrymandered lawmakers. Hey Charlie Brown, come try to kick this football again.

The truth is, DeWine lost all credibility on the subject of gerrymandering when he repeatedly voted for illegally gerrymandered maps. Now he’s pitching a proposal that would have lawmakers draft redistricting reform based on an “Iowa plan” that leaves lawmakers with final authority.

If you didn’t enjoy the last turd sandwich we forced you to eat, Ohio voters, perhaps you’ll let us serve you another one: refried and microwaved.

Does DeWine really think he’s this slick? Does he really think Ohio voters are this dumb?