Ohio Gov. Opposes Ballot Measure for Citizen Panel to Decide Redistricting

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine speaks in Columbus, Ohio, on May 23, 2024. (Patrick Orsagos/AP Photo)

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said he opposes a proposed constitutional amendment that would prevent politicians from restructuring the state’s 15 congressional districts and instead leave the duty to a 15-member citizen panel consisting of five Republican, five Democrat, and five independent voters.

The amendment qualified for November’s ballot after the Citizens Not Politicians campaign delivered 731,306 signatures from every county in Ohio to the secretary of state’s office.

If successful, the amendment would replace the current Ohio Redistricting Commission, made up of three statewide officeholders and four state lawmakers.

“When politicians draw biased, ridiculously shaped voting districts to favor their own interests, it’s called gerrymandering, and Ohio is one of the 10 most gerrymandered states,” Citizens Not Politicians said on its website.

Lobbyists, elected officials, and political consultants would not be allowed to participate in the panel, which would be selected with the help of retired judges.

DeWine, a Republican, said the amendment would make gerrymandering worse and prioritize proportionality, which requires maps to match recent statewide voting results.

“If the redistricting amendment on the ballot in November were to be adopted, Ohio would end up with a system that mandates map drawers to produce gerrymandered districts. Ohio would have gerrymandering in the extreme,” he said at a July 31 press conference.

“We must defeat this misguided ballot initiative because there is a better way to approach redistricting—a way that takes politics out of map drawing forever.”

According to DeWine, Iowa’s redistricting model, whereby the state’s nonpartisan legislative service commission draws districts and then lawmakers approve them for implementation, would be a better solution. It doesn’t remove politicians from the process, but DeWine said the concept could be tweaked to ensure that everyone is happy.

“Now, the idea of proportionality sounds fair,” he said. “However, we see that requiring the map drawer to draw districts, each of which favors one political party, with each district having a predetermined partisan advantage, and requiring a certain number of districts to favor each party, obliterates all other good government objectives. They all go away.”

Ohio House Speaker Jason Stephens, a Republican, said in a statement that he thinks the Citizens Not Politicians amendment is “bad for Ohio.”

Ohio Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio, a Democrat, supports the measure.

“Removing politicians from Ohio’s redistricting process is our only path to ensure fair maps in the future. We are OHIO, not Iowa,” Antonio said in a statement.

Retired Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor, who backs Citizens Not Politicians, accused DeWine of spreading “disinformation” about the issue.

“Gov. DeWine voted with his fellow politicians seven times for unconstitutional maps, and now says what Ohio really needs is what he calls ‘The Iowa Plan,’ a system where the governor and other politicians get the final say on maps,” she said in a statement.

Ohio’s existing system, involving the state Legislature and a state redistricting commission populated with elected officials, including DeWine, produced seven rounds of legislative and congressional maps rejected by the courts as unconstitutional.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.