Columbus
Dispatch...
GOP’s new district
map has to upset some Ohioans in Congress
By Joe Hallett and Jack Torry
Sunday, April 17, 2011
After taking the lead for Republicans in redrawing congressional
districts after the 2000 census, Scott Borgemenke vowed he would never
do it again.
“It’s the only time the Democrats call you a gerrymandering racist and
the Republicans call you a traitor because you’re not doing enough for
the party,” said Borgemenke, then the chief of staff for Ohio House
Republicans.
Following every decennial federal census, Ohio’s congressional members
act out their own version of Survivor, working feverishly behind the
scenes to save their political hides. Casting dignity aside, they
cajole, horse-trade, backstab and do whatever it takes to get the
safest possible districts.
“This is all about incumbent politics,” said Borgemenke, who got sucked
back into this year’s GOP inner circle of congressional map-drawers by
dint of his expertise and position as Secretary of State Jon Husted’s
chief of staff. Gov. John Kasich and fellow Republicans controlling the
legislature must approve the new districts.
The pressure from Ohio’s 13 Republican and five Democratic members of
Congress will be intense because two of them are going to lose their
jobs. Ohio’s new congressional map must be pared from 18 districts with
an average of 640,917 residents to 16 districts with an average of
721,032 residents.
The new districts must be in place before Dec. 7, the deadline for
candidates to file petitions for the March 6, 2012, primary election.
Democrats enter the redistricting struggle facing a range of
disadvantages, the foremost being that they will have no say in the
process.
“In Ohio, we have a way of determining district boundaries that allows
for a completely partisan process, giving the political party that has
control over the legislature as well as the governor’s office the
ability to make any map they want,” said Mark Salling, a Cleveland
State University demographer who advises the state on census issues.
Along with Kasich and GOP state legislative leaders, U.S. House Speaker
John Boehner of West Chester will have the most influence over the new
map.
Republicans with knowledge of the process say a key to the new
boundaries could be whether Boehner wants to limit Democrats to three
safe districts or four. Democrats likely to receive the most-favorable
treatment are Marcia Fudge of Cleveland, Tim Ryan of Niles and Marcy
Kaptur of Toledo.
Republicans’ prowess in the 2010 election made redistricting more
difficult because they have four new members to protect: Steve Chabot
in the Cincinnati area’s 1st District, Bill Johnson in eastern Ohio’s
6th, James Renacci in northeastern Ohio’s 16th and Robert Gibbs in the
mid-Ohio 18th.
“The success of the last election cycle makes the challenge more
difficult to satisfy all of the constituencies,” Husted said.
The GOP might justify cutting opposition seats by noting that much of
the state’s population shift involved residents moving out of the
districts now held by Democrats: Fudge and Dennis J. Kucinich of
Cleveland, Betty Sutton of Barberton, Kaptur, and Ryan. According to
the 2010 census, those five districts lost 182,114 people between 2000
and 2010, while the 13 Republican districts gained 329,130.
Fudge’s district lost 90,236 people, reducing its population to about
540,000. To preserve a safe political seat for Ohio’s only
African-American member, Republicans could stretch her district toward
Akron.
The only Democrat to gain population was Sutton, a third-term lawmaker.
Her district gained 18,174 people.
By contrast, the state’s population flowed freely into Republican
districts. Rep. Pat Tiberi of Genoa Township’s district includes the
state’s fastest-growing county - Delaware - and grew by 125,559 people.
The average Republican district gained about 25,000 people. The only
GOP district to show a population decline was Chabot’s 1st, which
shrank by 31,846.
Even though Sutton gained population, she faces peril from GOP
line-drawers likely to combine her district with Kucinich’s. The
reason? The Republicans have to create a safe seat for Fudge by drawing
a district largely populated by African-Americans.
“I don’t think there is any question there will be some concentrated
effort to target the Kucinich seat and draw it in some way into the
Fudge or Sutton seats,” said Eric Rademacher, a University of
Cincinnati political scientist.
Some analysts suggest that the Republicans might eliminate two
Democratic districts by combining Kucinich with Fudge and putting
Kaptur and Sutton in the same district; those moves would set off two
spirited Democratic primaries.
But Rademacher and others think that is unlikely. “It’s fairly
difficult to envision a plan where the Republicans do not put one of
their seats at risk,” Rademacher said.
David Wasserman, the House editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political
Report in Washington, said that “for Republicans to even attempt to
eliminate two Democratic seats would be to create more problems than
they would solve.”
Instead, Wasserman predicted that the Republicans will fold Sutton’s
and Kucinich’s districts together and eliminate Johnson’s 6th District
seat. Another option, according to some Republicans, is to combine
Chabot’s district with the 2nd District represented by Jean Schmidt of
Loveland.
Analysts also point out that Republicans would like to draw safer seats
for Tiberi, freshman Steve Stivers of Columbus and Steve LaTourette of
Mentor. Tiberi and LaTourette are close political allies of Boehner.
For that reason, Boehner might be reluctant to eliminate Johnson’s seat
because he has loyally sided with the speaker on the temporary spending
bills to keep the government open.
By contrast, Chabot, Jim Jordan of Urbana and Schmidt voted against the
compromise that Boehner negotiated with President Barack Obama - a
measure that trimmed federal spending by $38 billion for the rest of
the current fiscal year.
“There is a way to ax any incumbent that you want,” Wasserman said.
Read it at The Columbus Dispatch
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