GOP OKs Ohio legislature maps tweaked from rejected ones; Democrats say process 'hijacked'

Four Republicans on the Ohio Redistricting Commission approved state House and Senate maps late Monday – choosing to tweak maps declared unconstitutional by the Ohio Supreme Court over ones crafted in the public eye.

Democrats and Republican Auditor Keith Faber voted against the maps, which five of the seven commission members saw shortly before they were approved. That means they will last only four years. The court will review whether the maps abide by voter-approved changes to the Ohio Constitution to curb partisan gerrymandering.

Members of the public present yelled "cheater" and "no" as the commission approved the maps in a 4-3 vote. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose joined House Speaker Bob Cupp and Senate President Matt Huffman in supporting the maps.

Faber voted against the maps, saying the plan sacrificed compact districts for Democratic ones. But Sen. Vernon Sykes, D-Akron, said the redistricting process had been "hijacked."

Ohio redistricting: What the latest state Senate, House district maps look like

Under the new maps, Republicans would have a 54-45 advantage in the House and an 18-15 advantage in the Senate. Of those districts, 17 House and seven Senate seats are highly competitive, all of them Democratic. That's a reduction of two House districts and one Senate district from maps rejected, in part, because too many of the competitive districts were Democratic.

See the approved maps for House and Senate here.

Cupp said the maps were crafted Monday afternoon by Republican staff members and were the best that could be done under the tight timeline.

After the Ohio Supreme Court's majority had struck down three versions of legislative maps, the seven-member commission started to take a different, more transparent approach for round four. They hired University of Florida's Michael McDonald and National Demographics Corp.'s Douglas Johnson who crafted maps on a live stream viewed by thousands of Ohioans.

Hours before the court's 11:59 p.m. deadline, McDonald and Johnson didn't have a final product. Huffman proposed an alternative: GOP staff members would tweak Statehouse maps, approved by four Republicans on the Ohio Redistricting Commission in late February, as a starting point.

"I think we need a fail-safe," Huffman said. "If we're not going to land the plane, it would be nice to have a parachute."

The commission had already failed to produce legislative maps once before, prompting the Ohio Supreme Court's majority to schedule – and later postpone – a contempt of court hearing.

Huffman said he first started thinking about an alternative Saturday, but other members of the commission – both Democratic and Republican – said the idea caught them off guard.

"There seems to be no end to the arrogance of the supermajority," Sykes said. House Minority Leader Allison Russo, D-Upper Arlington, called the process "a complete farce."

What about the maps drawn by outsiders?

Johnson and McDonald had produced maps that met Ohio's statewide voting preferences: a 54-45 GOP advantage in the House and an 18-15 GOP advantage in the Senate. Their proposal created three competitive House seats for each party. In the Senate, they crafted two competitive Democratic seats and no Republican ones.

Democrats tried to adopt these maps later in the night, but Republicans rejected them, citing problems with compactness and divided communities.

Throughout Monday, several Republican members of the commission remained skeptical that the two hired mapmakers could "land the plane" on time. Faber criticized their maps for focusing on symmetry – how many competitive districts fell on each side of the partisan line – instead of compactness or unnecessary splits.

The hired mapmakers, who were each paid $450 an hour, faced several roadblocks in recent days. For example, on Saturday, Republicans on the commission suggested that mapmakers add the addresses of incumbents to the proposed maps. But they didn't receive legislators' addresses until Monday morning after crafting districts without lawmakers' locations in mind. Decisions from the commission members took hours.

"The commission continued to manufacture reasons for delay," said Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio, one of several groups challenging Ohio's maps in court. "Well before we got to 2021, some of these party leaders just planned on running out the clock."

That could put pressure on a trio of federal judges meeting Wednesday to determine whether GOP voters who filed a lawsuit are being disenfranchised from voting for House and Senate candidates in the May primary. Judges mulled various options including delaying early voting, moving the primary and imposing different maps.

LaRose, who oversees Ohio elections, said no legislative map would make the May 3rd ballot. In a court filing, his office said the earliest a primary could be held for those races would be May 24 and the latest date would be Aug. 2.

Ballots for May 3 do include congressional districts. The Ohio Supreme Court won't review that map until after that date. Under that map, Republicans would win at least 10 of the 15 congressional districts. Early voting begins on April 5.

Advocates for redistricting reform already have their sights set on a better process, possibly an independent commission such as ones used in other states. Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio, said they would not rush anything to the ballot, but something needed to change.

"They're drunk on power," Turcer said. "They need to be removed from the decision-making process."

Jessie Balmert is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Akron Beacon Journal, Cincinnati Enquirer, Columbus Dispatch and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.

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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio redistricting: Republicans tweak maps rejected by justices