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Columbus Dispatch...
Redistricting
contest all set for your
ideas
Organizers hope exercise helps find a
viable solution
By Ben Geier
Wednesday,
July 20, 2011
Think
you could do a better job than
politicians at drawing legislative and congressional districts? Your
chance is
now.
The
League of Women Voters of Ohio,
the Midwest Democracy Network and Ohio Citizen Action kicked off a
competition
yesterday to allow Ohioans to create their own new maps for the Ohio
House and
Senate, and the U.S. House of Representatives.
“We
are here today to launch a
campaign that has the potential to change the way redistricting is done
in Ohio
and throughout the country,” said Jim Slagle of the Ohio Campaign for
Accountable Redistricting.
Each
map submitted will be given a
grade based on four factors - preserving county boundaries,
compactness,
competitiveness and representational fairness.
Ann
Henkener of the League of Women
Voters of Ohio said that based on these categories, the current map for
congressional districts would receive a failing grade.
The
contest has $5,000 available in
cash prizes.
At
a news conference yesterday,
experts and advocates talked about how important redistricting is to
all
citizens.
Meg
Flack, the president of the League
of Women Voters of Ohio, said redistricting “affects every issue” and
“representative democracy as we know it depends on (redistricting).”
Dan
Tokaji, a law professor and
election-law expert at Ohio State University, said that, unlike people
in his
profession, many voters aren’t in the know about redistricting. This
contest,
he said, is their chance to get involved and for “the people to take
back the
reins of power, whatever their political beliefs.”
In
Ohio, two different groups are
responsible for redistricting. The Ohio Apportionment Board draws the
districts
for both houses of the Ohio legislature. This committee consists of
Gov. John
Kasich, state Auditor Dave Yost, Secretary of State Jon Husted and one
Democrat
and one Republican appointed by the leaders of the state legislature.
The
U.S. congressional districts,
though, are drawn by the state legislature. Ohio is losing two seats in
Congress. The House and Senate committees will begin a series of
hearings on
this process today, holding one this morning starting at 9 in the
Statehouse’s
Senate Finance Committee hearing room, and one this afternoon starting
at 3 in
the campus center on the Ohio State University branch campus in
Zanesville.
Three more will be held over the next two weeks.
The
contest is completely independent
of the official redistricting process, and lawmakers are under no
obligation to
take the suggestions. Slagle, though, said that the input of citizens
should be
taken seriously.
Matt
McClellan, a spokesman for Husted,
said the secretary of state’s office is “for an open and transparent
process.”
The
contest is open until Aug. 21 for
state legislative plans and Sept. 11 for U.S. congressional plans. The
contest’s website is www.drawthelineohio.org.
Read
it at the Columbus Dispatch
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