Cleveland Plain Dealer...
Ohio’s redistricting dustup
By The Plain Dealer Editorial Board
Sunday, October 16, 2011, 8:42 PM 

An Ohio Supreme Court ruling late Friday consigned Ohio’s 16 new congressional districts to limbo, setting the stage for what’s likely to be widespread electoral confusion in the 2012 elections. 

Mulish partisanship in the General Assembly got Ohio into this mess. Only mature leadership in Columbus -- never plentiful -- can get Ohio out of it. 

Redistricting was necessary because Ohio in 2012 has the right to elect only 16 U.S. House members, not the current 18. And Republicans in Ohio’s House and state Senate drew 16 new districts -- most notably, squeezing Toledo Democrat Marcy Kaptur and Cleveland’s Dennis Kucinich into one snakelike district. 

Republicans gave 12 of the 16 new districts a GOP tilt -- potentially three-quarters of Ohio’s U.S. House representation in a narrowly divided state. 

Democrats, no surprise, want to let Ohioans vote on the new map in a statewide referendum -- and Friday, the state Supreme Court (which, be it noted, is 6-1 Republican) ruled uanimously on the right to referendum. 

But if Democrats gather enough signatures, a referendum can’t happen before November 2012 because of how referendum timetables work. That leaves in limbo what to do about next year’s primary, currently scheduled for March 6, with a filing deadline of Dec. 7, 2011. 

This mismash is a recipe for confusion at best, endless lawsuits at worst. 

The legislature’s leaders (including Speaker William Batchelder of Medina) must call the General Assembly back to the drawing board and commission a second -- this time, reasonable -- map with enough trade-offs to forestall a referendum drive by Democrats. 

Ohioans must demand their legislature do something rarely seen in either state or national politics these days: compromise. 

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