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Remap Ohio districts your way...
By The Plain Dealer Editorial Board
Saturday, August 13, 2011
A
constructive and creative initiative
co- sponsored by Secretary of State Jon Husted, Ohio’s chief election
officer,
may or may not reform the way Ohio draws General Assembly and
congressional
districts. But the initiative will, at the very least, heighten voters’
awareness of what up to now has been an insiders’ game in Columbus.
Every
10 years, Ohio is required to
change legislative and congressional districts to match population
shifts. This
is one of those years. Each of the 99 state House districts should have
about
117,000 residents. Each of 16 congressional districts should have about
721,000
residents. (Ohio now has 18 U.S. House seats but is losing two.)
That
appears simple, just a matter of
mathematics. But it’s not. First, the voting rights of racial
minorities must
be protected. Second, the legal requirements for drawing General
Assembly
districts and congressional districts are complex. Third, as with all
else in
Columbus, politics is a fact of life. Democrats and Republicans aren’t
evenly
distributed across Ohio. That means a tweak here, a tweak there, and a
proposed
Ohio House or congressional district can be made more or less friendly
to one
of the political parties.
Of
Ohio’s 18 congressional contests
last November, Democrats won five (28 percent), Republicans won 13 (72
percent). Yet of the 3.6 million votes cast in Ohio for all Democrats
and
Republicans running for Congress, Democrats drew 44 percent of the
vote;
Republicans drew 56 percent.
Clearly,
part of that is geography,
plain and simple. For example, 59 percent of the residents of Greater
Cleveland’s 11th Congressional District (Rep. Marcia Fudge, a
Warrensville
Heights Democrat) are black, as is Fudge. Were Fudge’s district rural,
and 94
percent white, it might well elect, say, U.S. Rep. Bob Gibbs, a
Lakeville
Republican -- as Appalachia’s 18th District did.
Still,
congressional districts (drawn
by the General Assembly) and General Assembly districts (drawn by an
Apportionment Board run by Republican Husted; Republican Gov. John
Kasich; and
Republican State Auditor David Yost) can result as much from political
art as
from political science.
And
while both types of districts are
drawn in public, the mechanics have been so complicated that the work,
in
effect, was private. If the average Ohioan wanted to review or improve
maps
proposed by Columbus mapmakers, he or she didn’t have the data or the
computer program
to do that. That’s where ReshapeOhio.org comes in, a website sponsored
by the
Apportionment Board and the Legislative Task Force on Redistricting.
ReshapeOhio.org
offers explanations
and documents to help Ohioans review apportionment and “districting.”
And,
starting Monday, ReshapeOhio.org will offer Ohioans mapmaking tools to
propose
General Assembly districts and congressional districts. Husted says
it’s the
same technology the official mapmakers will use.
Would
those mapmakers adopt a map for
U.S. House districts or General Assembly districts submitted by an
ordinary
Ohioan?
It
seems unlikely. But ReshapeOhio.org
seemingly could give interested Ohioans, if not a seat at the drawing
table, at
least their best opportunity yet to understand (and critique) what up
to now
has been, de facto, a private Statehouse undertaking. That is,
ReshapeOhio.org
should offer Ohioans a way to at least judge what state officials
propose. That
could be a powerful check and a potent balance.
Read
it at the Cleveland Plain Dealer
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