Toledo Blade...
Redistricting issue shows sharp Ohio divide
By Jim Provance 

COLUMBUS -- When did the League of Women Voters of Ohio become a “special-interest snake in the grass,” in the words of the head of the Ohio Republican Party? 

When it aligned itself with Democrats and GOP foes to champion a constitutional amendment, on the Nov. 6 ballot, to take away lawmakers’ power to redraw congressional and state legislative districts. 

“They are just another special-interest snake in the grass, and sadly, they took a noble cause and twisted it for partisan gain,” state GOP Chairman Bob Bennett said recently about alleged cheating in the signature-gathering process by the Ohio Voters First coalition, of which the league is a member. 

The strong rhetoric is an early example of how nasty the fight ahead could get over an inherently partisan political process that many voters spend little time thinking about. 

“I was reading some information about the 1981 campaign, and there was a quote that the League of Women Voters was prostituting itself during that campaign,” said Ann Henkener, a member of the league’s board of directors. “I guess being called ‘snakes in the grass’ is a step back.” 

That 1981 attempt to change how Ohio draws districts was soundly defeated by voters, and another attempt in 2005 met a similar fate. 

Redistricting is a complicated issue, but the political stakes are high for the party in charge at the moment. If voters approve the constitutional amendment certified this week for the ballot, recently enacted Republican-drawn maps designed to solidify GOP congressional, Ohio Senate, and Ohio House majorities would be thrown out and redrawn in time for the 2014 elections. 

Going forward, the amendment would hand that power to a new commission directly or indirectly appointed by appellate judges. District competitiveness would be a primary goal for the new commission as it redraws future legislative maps, typically once a decade after a U.S. Census. 

HIGHLIGHTS 

Among other provisions, the proposed constitutional amendment:

Creates a 12-member Ohio Citizens Independent Redistricting Commission to redraw congressional, state Senate, and state House districts every 10 years after each U.S. Census. 

Requires a new map to be immediately drawn using the new criteria with districts to take effect in 2014. 

Requires the commission to adopt the map that most closely meets these four criteria without violating federal voting rights law — splits the fewest local government units, creates the most politically competitive districts, represents the political makeup of the state as a whole, and keeps districts compact. 

Requires a vote of at least seven of the 12 commissioners to adopt a map. 

Requires the population count of each state legislative district to be within 98 and 102 percent of the equal population target. That variation could widen to between 95 and 105 percent if a district is made up of a single whole county. 

Requires the chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court to name a bipartisan panel of eight appellate judges to vet applicants and select a pool of 42 potential commissioners — 14 Democrats, 14 Republicans, and 14 independents 

Allows the Ohio House speaker and minority leader to eliminate three candidates each from the list of 42 with the judicial panel then picking by lot nine commissioners — three Democrats, three Republicans, and three independents. 

And there’s the question of what effect the ballot measure might have on voter turnout in a key presidential election battleground state. The same labor-union and Democratic Party forces behind last year’s campaign to repeal Senate Bill 5 -- the Republican-passed, anti-collective bargaining law -- are behind the Voters First amendment. 

“This is a labor-backed, union-backed, Democratic Party proposal,” Mr. Bennett said this week. “It is not nonpartisan. They are hiding behind the League of Women Voters, and are trying to make it look as if it is nonpartisan. 

“Look at the funding source,” he said. “It’s coming from unions, the Democratic Party, and its sources. I understand people are upset at the current system, but this is not the way to do it. … The league has chosen to get involved in a partisan attack on a system, and they have to wear the label also.” 

The state GOP chairman downplays the Voters First issue’s potential effect on the presidential race, but if Democrats come out in the numbers they did last November to defeat Senate Bill 5, it can’t hurt the Obama campaign’s efforts to win Ohio again. 

“This is going to be fought in the trenches,” Mr. Bennett said. “I don’t see much in the way of TV availability by the time the presidential and congressional races get through. … There’s not going to be much room for issue development.” 

It will instead come down to the ground game: Each party’s get-out-the-vote effort... 

Read the rest of this in-depth report at the Toledo Blade