Republicans pull a fast one, and Gov. Mike DeWine fails to speak out for voters

As predictably as Lucy snatches away the football to deny Charlie Brown his kick, so Gov. Mike DeWine and his Republicans snatched away attempts at a bipartisan fair redistricting plan and substituted their own hyperpartisan map at the last minute. They've been doing this since the 2000 census, when Republicans controlled the House, Senate and governorship. Although averaging no more than 55% of the vote during this time period, they awarded themselves 66% (2000 census), then 75% (2010 census), and now as many as 87% (2020 census) of U.S. House seats.

This decennial game plays out against a backdrop of support for fair apportionment. In 2015, over 70% of Ohio voters approved constitutional changes calling for a districting plan that "shall correspond closely to the statewide preferences of the voters of Ohio." DeWine campaigned on this, but now, afraid of defying his own power-drunk caucus, takes the coward's way out by defying the will of his constituents and leaving the heavy lifting to voter rights organizations and the courts.

It wasn't always this way. When Democrats controlled the Ohio House from 1975 through 1994 and averaged slightly over half of the vote, Republicans held 48% (1980 census) and 58% (1990 census) of the state's U.S. House seats. The "both sides" argument clearly doesn't work here.

More: Redistricting: Would Ohio be better off with an independent commission? Would voters approve one?

DeWine's disingenuous diversionary argument touting the compactness and competitiveness of the map also fails. Compactness is a feature of the preferred Democratic redistricting maps as well as numerous citizen-initiated maps submitted to the Ohio Redistricting Commission. Competitiveness, no matter how creatively defined, is not among the constitutional guidelines for a districting plan. Meanwhile, bright-line constitutional guidelines calling for correspondence to statewide voter preferences and discouraging favoritism of a particular political party go unmentioned. For obvious reasons.

This map is consequential.

If it stands, we'll retain our position among the top four most gerrymandered states in the union (Mother Jones, Nov. 22). If it stands, we'll continue to send cartoonish, unserious politicians representing the fringe views of their safely gerrymandered district to Washington, D.C., to provide fodder for late-night comedians — and little else. And most troubling, we'll continue to ensure minority rule and electoral dysfunction by denying future lawmakers the opportunity to learn how to effectively govern by seeking compromise within a bipartisan body.

Ohioans deserve courageous leadership and a level playing field. We have neither.

Jacqueline Myers Roth is a Bath resident.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Mike DeWine makes excuses for failure to make fair legislative maps