Redistricting Ohio – Everything You Should Know

This article covers all the important information that you must know about Redistricting Ohio, Redistricting Ohio Map, and more. So, keep reading to discover more!

Redistricting Ohio – Everything You Should Know

Redistricting is a procedure in which a new congressional district and state legislative districts are sketched. These lines are drawn every ten years after the census of the United States gets completed. During this process, the federal government strictly keeps an eye on that each district must have an equal population. It shouldn’t be discriminated against based on race, ethnicity, and color.

Ohio was allocated 15 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2020 after the census got completed. It received 1 seat less than it received after the census of 2010. According to the current status, Ohio’s House of Representatives consists of 99 districts, whereas its state senate consists of 33 districts. The state legislature is the one that set the state congressional district in Ohio as a regular statute and subject to the gubernatorial veto. On the contrary, the political commission draws the state legislature district lines. The state lines that are passed by the backup commission and with the majority are accurate for ten years.

In contrast, the lines approved by the normal legislator are compelling for two general elections only. It includes bipartisan maps. The backup commission includes 7 political commission members such as the Governor, State Auditor, Secretary of State, and one commissioner selected by the majority and minority leader in each legislative house.

The new districts are drawn with the motive to shield their party’s members from the cut-throat election competition. Ohio’s first redistricting took place in 1967 and underwent a modification process in 2015. It must have the vote support of no less than two members affiliated with each primary party to pass the plans. But if any case, the commission halts, then it may enact a plan by a majority vote.

If the constituting member finds any difficulties forming districts, they can head to the Supreme Court of Ohio. It has the initial and exclusive power to hear and solve the difficulties filed by the congressional and state legislative lines in the state court. The committee members will have to redraw the legal districts if the project is stated invalid. If districts are declared inappropriate, new districts can be redrawn after making corrections. Still, if a court declares two state senates or six state House districts, the commission must redraw the state legislative plan again.

Ohio redistricting commission approved a redrawn congressional map with a majority and support of a 5/2 vote on 2nd March 2022. The map made by the commission would last for 4 years. Ohio Supreme Court stated it has no authority to topple the map before the state’s primary election takes place on 18th March. It was decided after the initial congressional map was legally challenged to overturn it. The Supreme Court approved the map for Ohio’s 2022 congressional elections.

A couple of months ago, on 19th July 2022, the Supreme Court stated that the congressional district boundaries adopted by Ohio Redistricting Commission on 2nd March 2022 were unauthorized. The Ohio Supreme Court decided with a vote of 4/3. The Supreme Court said that the congressional district boundaries drawn by the commission didn’t get support from the members of the minority party. As a result, the commission would need to legislate a new map after the 2024 elections. 

What are the criteria for redistricting in Ohio?

Ohio must have an equal population requirement like other states for redistricting. It must act under the Voting Rights Act and constitutional rules on race. According to Ohio law, all the congressional districts must be adjacent and consolidated and have political units. If a city of the state is spacious to include more than one district, then the part must be included in that one district, or if they find any other city that can be included, that should also be included.

A city in the county can’t be split if it has more than 100,000 people but is smaller in size. It is compulsory for one district to have 65 counties in that, and each district must have one whole county. 18 counties can be divided once, and 5 counties can be separated twice, but no counties must be divided and split more than two times. The divided portion of any congressional district must be in the same county. Two districts are strictly prohibited from spreading over the same two counties until the county has more than 400,000 people. 

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What is the Public Input for redistricting in Ohio?

To date, 28 states have included active citizen participation and public intake in the redistricting process of Ohio. To give access to the public in the process, many states, various companies, and entities created unrestricted, publicly available map-drawing software for nationals so they could also participate and give their ideas and contribution in the same. The Utah government adopted a plan drawn by a citizen for the state’s new school board boundaries in 2010.

In the past years, citizens participated interestingly, and to encourage them, the government of Ohio interspersed more prospects for the public to participate in the process. Whether redistricting is done under the legislature’s authority or a commission, the trend remains. Till 2019, 16 bills had been introduced in eight states that strived at unlocking the redistricting process to the public in some manner.

Some states allow citizens to comment on the maps proposed by the states or even if submitted to them. While on the other hand, some states execute this by keeping an electronic database of all offered maps so that any citizen can view and remark on them.

Twelve states also allow citizens to head over to their state supreme court to reconsider an approved plan for apparent errors or infringements of the law or relevant redistricting criteria. But most of state limits the petition process to registered voters, but some allow the citizens to do so. Few states have set this option for aggrieved persons.

Redistricting Ohio Map Download

On 16th September 2021, the redistricting commission of Ohio approved a new state legislative district map with a voting majority of 5/2. Still, the two members of the democratic party, state representative Emilia Sykes and state senator Vernon Skyes didn’t agree with the approved map. They disagreed because the new map would create 65 Republican seats and only 34 Democratic seats.

On 12th January 2022, the Ohio Supreme court declared the congressional map invalid drawn by Ohio’s Republican congress and governor in November. The Supreme Court ordered Ohio’s redistricting commission to redraw the map within the period of 10 days. The court said the map that is made up of 73 percent of the state’s districts Republican infringed the partisan-fairness requirements in the state constitution.

 

It considered that the GOP “generally musters no more than 55% of the statewide popular vote,” in the words of Justice Michael Donnelly in the court’s opinion. “By any rational measure, that skewed result just does not add up.”

The commission redrew the map, but Ohio supreme court again disapproved of the map and called the Ohio Redistricting Commission to introduce new maps till 17th February. The commission couldn’t redraw the map before the given deadline. The commission voted to approve the vote by 4/3. Two Democratic members of the commission and one member of the Republican Party, State Auditor Keith Faber, joined their hands to vote against the map.

On 7th March, the Ohio Supreme Court again disapproved of the redrawn map and ordered the Ohio Redistricting commission to draw the map again by 28th March. The new map had 11 Republican-dominating seats but only two Democratic-leaning seats and only two highly competitive seats. The new map was as same as the old one.

The commission consented to appoint two independent advisors to assist in the map-making process on 22nd March 2022. Michael McDonald, a University of Florida political science professor, and Douglas Johnson, president of the National Demographics Corporation, were appointed as the new advisors of the commission. Sen Vernon Sykes and State Representative Bobb Cupp appointed the two advisors.

Unfortunately, Ohio Supreme Court disapproved of the map for the fourth time and ordered the commission to redraw it by 6th May 2022.  DeWine, La Rose, Huffman, and Cupp voted to approve the map it had submitted to the Ohio Supreme Court on 24th February 2022, but Russo, Sykes, and Faber voted against it. After many attempts, a federal court ruling on Ohio’s legislative agreed to approve the map that was drawn in February for the 2022 elections.