Redistricting in Ohio: Prepping for Round 2
Gerrymandering in Texas and California in response to Trump; Buckeye state battle following the constitution
By Susan Tebben
Ohio Capital Journal
Ohio Democrats are preparing for a congressional redistricting fight this fall, hoping to stand up to a Republican supermajority and align districts with the voter trends. Meanwhile, prominent Republicans have proposed drawing even more skewed districts.
The redistricting process that starts next month in Ohio is different from the fights in Texas and other states, where Republicans have been reopening the process in years when the redrawing of voting districts isn’t required by law.
Because of a state process that has been filled with conflict and controversy since the 2020 U.S. Census was released, Ohio is required to redraw congressional districts this year.
United front
Congressional maps were drawn and approved twice over the last five years by Ohio leaders, but neither of the maps received the bipartisan support the state constitution requires to allow the maps to be used for 10 years.
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On top of that, both maps were deemed unconstitutional by the Ohio Supreme Court, though that didn’t stop Republican leaders from leaving the most recently approved map in place and using it for the last election cycle.
Democratic leaders in the state say they plan to keep their eyes forward and work toward the agreement that has so often eluded elected leaders in the redistricting process thus far.
“Obviously, my aspirational hope would be that we would enter into a process that was fair and that was reflective of the voting patterns of the people of the state of Ohio,” Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio told the Capital Journal.
At the same time, Antonio said she’s “pragmatic and a realist,” and she and her compatriot, House Minority Leader Dani Isaacsohn, understand that the history of redistricting in Ohio has not brought about results that exactly matched the voting patterns, where Ohio currently stands at a ratio of 55% Republican and 45% Democrat.
As the makeup of the congressional representation of the state stands now, the map has a 66% Republican lean with 10 Republicans and five Democrats in the U.S. Congress.
“The reality is Ohio has been gerrymandered for a really long time, and the idea that we would even consider further gerrymandering a state that’s already one of the most gerrymandered maps in the country just adds insult to injury,” Isaacsohn said.
With the recent results of the presidential election in Ohio placing the state in a 55%-44% ratio, advocates and Democratic leaders say the numbers should be more like eight Republican Congress members and seven Democrats.
“Unfortunately, I don’t know that that’s what we’re facing,” Antonio said of the upcoming redistricting process. “My concern is that what we’re facing is another opportunity to gerrymander the districts.”
Ohio Republican U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno suggested this summer that Republicans draw maps that would give them 12 of 15 seats, or 80% representation.
The Ohio Democratic Party as a whole is concerned as well, and preparing to fight through outreach to legislators, through public comments during the proceedings and even a new ballot measure to challenge the process if needed. A previous attempt to change the way redistricting is done in the state through a ballot measure failed in last year’s general election.
“We will fight, we will organize, we will make noise at every step of the process,” said Ohio Democratic Party chair Kathleen Clyde in a Thursday press call with Texas Democratic Party Chair Kendall Scudder. “We have options at the ballot, we have options in court.”
Texas has made national news with their recent redistricting battle, one in which Democrats left the state all together to keep Republicans from passing a map that was deemed very unfairly Republican-leaning.
Clyde and Scudder presented a unified front against Republican gerrymandering attempts, in what they say is a representation of the entire Democratic Party’s stance against unduly partisan maps that hinder attempts to keep voting districts competitive.
“What we have heard loud and clear since the 2024 elections is that Democrats are ready for a party that doesn’t just take punches, we throw them,” Scudder said.
Clyde is nonplussed by the numbers in the Ohio legislature, where Republicans hold a supermajority in both chambers. The redistricting process starts in that legislature, where the maps must be approved by a three-fifths majority to be able to proceed.
“Even with a minority status in the legislature, that is part of the process, minority support for the maps,” Clyde said. “We will be pursuing what the voters said they wanted, which is a map where fairness is a key piece of the process.”
The path ahead
Antonio has had her fair share of experience with redistricting, having been co-chair of the Ohio Redistricting Commission last time around, and being a part of the only instance in which bipartisan support was put behind a set of maps, in that case, the last round of statehouse district maps.
While Antonio said that was a rare moment in which Republicans were motivated to “add additional voices of the people of the state of Ohio and move towards a more fair map,” she still acknowledges the legislative map was “the best of a worst-case scenario.”
To get bipartisan support this time around would take reflecting those voting patterns from the Donald Trump-Kamala Harris election.
“It would take having a fair representation of the patterns of the voting districts in Ohio, that’s what it would take,” Antonio said.
The Senate and House minority leaders said they have started discussions about the process, and are working to draw up contracts for consultants to help with the drawing of maps when the time comes.
Isaacsohn said he knows the redistricting process isn’t about the elected officials who are a part of it, but more about “the democracy we want to live in,” and the impacts the power of voting can have on issues like education, housing and senior services.
“We will stick to our core convictions,” Isaacsohn said.
They are prepared, as are leaders of the Ohio Democratic Party, to take the battle to the courts if needed, though the state supreme court’s current makeup of six conservative justices and a single liberal justice, doesn’t provide hope for their chances.
“There was a time when the expectation was that the supreme court in the state of Ohio used the measure of the law to look through that lens and make decisions,” Antonio said. “What we’re seeing now, the supreme court in the state of Ohio looks through the lens of partisan politics first.”
Still, the Senate’s leading Democrat said state Republicans have pledged that they will work to create a map that represents what’s best for the state of Ohio, and at the current moment, she is “open to accepting them at their word.”
“The biggest thing for all of us to consider is you go into everything with an open mind and you work from there,” Antonio said.
The Ohio General Assembly has until Sept. 30 to come up with a map that has the necessary bipartisan approval to be passed for 10 years. If it can’t come up with that agreement, the process moves to the Ohio Redistricting Commission, made up of a majority Republican elected leaders.
If bipartisan agreement isn’t gained there by Oct. 30, the process moves back to the legislature, where the maps can be approved by a simple majority. The deadline for that final attempt is Nov. 30.