On the third try, the bipartisan Citizens Not Politicians Ohio campaign got their proposed ballot language approved by Republican Attorney General David Yost. This happened just days after the state’s partisan redistricting commission approved gerrymandered maps, with Democratic members voting in favor in order to protect their remaining seats.
Next step for the campaign: approval by the Ohio Ballot Board, which also has a Republican majority. If approved by the board, the campaign will begin to collect nearly 500,000 signatures from 44 counties across the state to place the question on the November 2024 ballot. If approved by the voters, the commission will be appointed and tasked with redrawing congressional, legislative and other state maps for the 2026 elections.
In related news, the campaign also hired the former director of the Missouri nonpartisan redistricting campaign which was passed in 2018, then infamously repealed in 2020, by the voters (thanks to Republican fuckery).
Good to see!
Looking forward
Obviously, this bipartisan campaign is the best bet for Ohio Democrats to end the GOP supermajority in legislative and congressional maps. In the last round of redistricting, the Democrats unsuccessfully proposed congressional maps that would end up 8R-7D.
At the very least, this would also prevent one party from unilaterally ramming ballot questions onto the ballot without buy-in from the minority party in either legislative chamber.
Also, the 2015 and 2018 ballot measures which established more elaborate regulations of redistricting failed to curb the GOP’s legislative veto of any unfavorable maps. CNPO’s ballot measure would finally end this legislative veto, as well as:
- Ensure an equal balance of Democrats, Republicans and non-affiliated citizens, all of whom are removed as much as possible from the political process as possible;
- End prison gerrymandering;
- Make the Ohio Supreme Court the final arbiter on constitutionality of maps adopted by the commission
I look forward to Ohio passing this amendment next year.
