By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Ohio’s congressional districts – including those shaped like a “snake by the lake” and another like a duck – were found unconstitutional Friday by a federal court.
State leaders, who were already planning to work on redistricting after the 2020 U.S. Census, have now been ordered to draw new districts by June 14 so they are in place for the 2020 election.
“I think this is really good news for the voters of Ohio,” Mike Zickar, head of the Wood County Democratic Party, said late Friday afternoon. “Now we won’t have districts that are preordained.”
A three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court in Cincinnati ruled unanimously that the congressional district boundaries were manipulated for partisan gain by Republican mapmakers and violates voters’ rights to democratically select their representatives. The ruling blocks Ohio from holding another election under the current map.
But Republican leaders aren’t planning to let the ruling go unchallenged. Also on Friday afternoon, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said an appeal will be filed with the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Ohioans already voted to reform how we draw our congressional maps,” Yost wrote in a press release. “This protracted opinion takes that decision out of the hands of the people and is a fundamentally political act that has no basis whatsoever in the Constitution. Ohio will seek a stay of this decision and appeal it.”
However, citizens who have been pushing for years for fair congressional districts welcome the federal court order that could clean up the boundaries before the next members of congress are elected.
“I think it’s extremely important,” said Joan Callecod, of Bowling Green, who worked with the local League of Women Voters to get the district lines redrawn. “It would be for more fair elections.”
Callecod and others collected signatures to get the issue put on the statewide ballot last year. The majority of Ohioans voted in agreement that the districts needed to be changed.
Some of the testimony that convinced the federal court this week included the results of the 2018 general election. Congressional Democrats nationwide had a good year in 2018, gaining 40 seats. However, in Ohio Republican congressional candidates managed to hold onto 75 percent of Ohio’s House seats while getting just 52 percent of the vote total.
Voters’ rights and Democratic groups sued Ohio Republican officials, pointing out that redistricting completed after the 2010 Census yielded a statewide map that has produced an unmovable 12-4 Republican advantage in Ohio’s delegation.
The suit called Ohio’s current map “one of the most egregious gerrymanders in recent history.”
Republicans said the map was drawn with bipartisan support, and noted that a new map will be drawn anyway after the 2020 Census.
But the court said Ohioans shouldn’t have to wait that long for a fair map.
Callecod predicted all the congressional districts will see modifications.
“It’s going to change the boundaries for all of them,” she said.
And both Zickar and Callecod are hoping the changes will rid Ohio of gerrymandered districts, which manipulate the congressional lines to benefit one political party or the other.
“In partisan gerrymandering, the legislators choose their voters. The voters don’t choose their legislators,” Callecod said.
Regardless of which party benefits from gerrymandering, the system is wrong, Callecod said.
The ultimate goal is to get congressional district lines drawn so that the elections aren’t decided before the votes are cast.
“The districts will be more competitive,” Zickar said.
Zickar also predicted some changes to Congressional District 5, which covers Bowling Green and is held by Republican Bob Latta. That change may come as a more reasonable district is drawn for Congressional District 9, held by Democrat Marcy Kaptur. Kaptur’s district was mangled into the “snake by the lake” the last time it was redistricted.
“Congresswoman Kaptur’s district is absurd,” Zickar said. “There’s a good possibility Kaptur’s district will come down into Wood County again.”
