COLUMBUS, Ohio — As election season inches closer, Ohio’s district maps remain a question mark.
The Ohio Supreme Court has already rejected one heavily Republican-leaning map and now is deciding whether to approve an altered version ahead of the candidate filing deadline next week.
“You know, like farmers have to plant their crops, people who are running for public office have to plant their seeds and get moving,” says Tom Patton (R), Representative for Ohio’s District 7.
The candidate filing deadline is on February 2nd, but as local politicians prepare campaigns and gather signatures, they’re not even sure what voters will be in their districts.
“Just allow people to file no matter where they live and not even knowing what district they are filing in, which I think is a little bit crazy,” says Jeff Crossman (D), Representative for Ohio’s District 15.
On Wednesday, the legislature chose not to move the candidate filing deadline back, despite not having approved district maps.
Patton says, “They said they were going to be a little bit more lenient with the signatures. As long as you got signatures from what you thought was going to be your district.”
Ohio’s Supreme Court has given the redistricting commission until Friday to respond to challenges, like those from the American Civil Liberties Union, calling the maps unconstitutional. The objections claim the maps are gerrymandered to favor Republicans.
“All we really have to do is look at how different census units within the district voted in the past and that’s basically how the district will vote in the future,” says Justin Buchler, associate professor of political science at Case Western Reserve University.
Using the info Buchler is talking about, political science experts say the rejected maps would have given republicans a 35 seat advantage in the Ohio House and 13 in the State Senate. The new maps currently being considered, bring the GOP advantage to 15 in the House and 7 in the Senate. While both Patton and Crossman agree the rejected maps did go against voters’ wishes, they disagree on the new ones.
“This is what the people wanted, that’s what they asked for,” says Patton. “I think this next map really is a realistic, competitive map.”
“I think the court is going to take a real hard look at whether these maps are constitutionally compliant, personally I don’t think they are,” says Crossman. “I think they’re going to have to go back to the drawing board.”
If the Ohio Supreme Court doesn’t approve the maps, they are not legally allowed to hire their own experts to draw their own, like in some other states.
“That’s explicitly in the 2015 amendment, it says no court may do this work,” says Jonathan Entin, law professor at Case Western Reserve University.
So, if these latest maps don’t make it through the court, it’d once again be up to elected officials to make changes, against an even tighter deadline.
Entin says, “The court also threw out the congressional district map and we may very well be back here having a similar conversation about the congressional map in three or four weeks.”
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