1 hour ago, E Rocc said:

 

That case, if decided that way, would effectively gut the Voting Rights Act.  So yes, that changes everything.

 

 

On positive note Ohio Statehouse Dems picked up 2 seats in each so that’s how the pendulum will start to swing back to the middle. Interesting read in New Jersey they are reportedly thanking their favorably redrawn districts by their Dem controlled Statehouse as preventing losses there as NJ suddenly moved near swing status this election.

15 minutes ago, Willo said:

On positive note Ohio Statehouse Dems picked up 2 seats in each so that’s how the pendulum will start to swing back to the middle. Interesting read in New Jersey they are reportedly thanking their favorably redrawn districts by their Dem controlled Statehouse as preventing losses there as NJ suddenly moved near swing status this election.

That is very good news. It removes the supermajority.

 

When they drew the current ridiculous statehouse maps they drew a whole ton of D +1 districts that were effectively tossups. The consequence is that in a true blue wave election, democrats should be able to pick up lots of seats (but picking up a majority would be almost impossible).

 

The 2026 elections and 2030 elections will be critical. Ohio is still very much a purple state, even if people don't see it that way. Trump won here by a smaller margin than he did in Texas or Florida or Iowa. Actually, I am pretty sure that besides the seven swing states, Ohio had the smallest margin of victory for Trump. Now sure, that margin was +12, but swings on that order of magnitude can easily happen over several years. in 1988, Ohio voted for HW Bush by a +11 margin. Then in 1992, Ohio voted Clinton by +2, and in 1996, Clinton by +6. That's a 17-point swing to the left in 8 years.

 

Put simply, Ohio Democrats need to get their act together right now. Frankly, it's their fault that the state is deeply red, and only they can fix it. Some of the republican leaders in the General Assembly are pretty out there, but the executive branch is staffed with some very reasonable people cut from the same basic cloth as Mitt Romney. DeWine, Husted, Yost. They're all basically very normal and conservative politicians (I'm omitting LaRose, lol).

 

In 2026, Husted probably runs for governor. He's a very normal, likeable guy and he would be a strong candidate. Democrats need to run very strong candidates at the top of the ticket to keep it competitive. This is something they have failed to do. In 2018, Sherrod Brown outran Cordray by 8 points. In 2022, Tim Ryan outran Nan Whaley by 9 points. Who controls the executive branch after the 2030 election will determine how redistricting proceeds.

Ohio Dems need to nominate people who campaign like John Fetterman did in PA. Speak about the things people care about, and speak about them forcefully. I personally love policy wonks, but the electorate doesn't care and they're often boring. We need to elevate people who can actually talk to the electorate in medium sized cities passionately about the topics they care about. 

1 hour ago, Willo said:

On positive note Ohio Statehouse Dems picked up 2 seats in each so that’s how the pendulum will start to swing back to the middle.

 

This absolutely made my day. 

 

38 minutes ago, LlamaLawyer said:

Democrats need to run very strong candidates at the top of the ticket to keep it competitive. This is something they have failed to do. In 2018, Sherrod Brown outran Cordray by 8 points. In 2022, Tim Ryan outran Nan Whaley by 9 points. Who controls the executive branch after the 2030 election will determine how redistricting proceeds.

 

Sherrod Brown for Governor!

2 hours ago, Willo said:

On positive note Ohio Statehouse Dems picked up 2 seats in each

No longer a supermajority (2/3) (at least 67 seats -- Rs are down to 66) in the Ohio House but still a veto-proof majority (60%).  (Ohio Senate still supermajority R)

 

https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2024/11/06/how-the-2024-election-impacts-balance-of-power-in-ohio-statehouse/

https://www.cleveland.com/politics/2024/11/gov-mike-dewine-says-legislators-still-need-to-address-gerrymandering.html

 

This article makes me feel cautiously optimistic. Basically DeWine is saying he feels the current system (and maps) are terribly broken and he wants a fix ASAP, just not the one proposed by Issue 1. DeWine favors a system like the one used in Iowa, which seems like it could be better than the current situation.

 

All that being said, DeWine was a basically passive observer on the panel that gave us current maps. So I will maintain a degree of skepticism.

On 11/8/2024 at 8:52 AM, LlamaLawyer said:

https://www.cleveland.com/politics/2024/11/gov-mike-dewine-says-legislators-still-need-to-address-gerrymandering.html

 

This article makes me feel cautiously optimistic. Basically DeWine is saying he feels the current system (and maps) are terribly broken and he wants a fix ASAP, just not the one proposed by Issue 1. DeWine favors a system like the one used in Iowa, which seems like it could be better than the current situation.

 

All that being said, DeWine was a basically passive observer on the panel that gave us current maps. So I will maintain a degree of skepticism.

Well, if the proof is in the pudding, Iowa has always appeared to have some of the least gerrymandered maps in the country, so it must work for them. 

 

Issue 1 would have passed without the poison pill of requiring the committee to use political voting patterns to draw districts primarily based on how they will be expected to vote with the goal making expected seat numbers equal to the statewide tally. Iowa by contrast forbids its commission from considering politics at all, and works exclusively from census data. 

 

That said, lawmakers are much more involved in redistricting in Iowa than they would have been with issue 1. Committee members are bipartisan appointments, but the main involvement is that they have to approve the maps. Interestingly they basically always do. 

 

Anyways here's ballotpedia's summary. 

 

"State law establishes the following criteria for both congressional and state legislative districts:[40]

 

Districts must be "convenient and contiguous."

Districts must "preserve the integrity of political subdivisions like counties and cities."

Districts must "to the extent consistent with other requirements, [be] reasonably compact–defined in terms of regular polygons, comparisons of length and width, and overall boundary perimeter."

 

In addition, state House districts are required to be contained within state Senate districts "where possible, and where not in conflict with the criteria above." It is explicit in state law that district lines cannot be drawn "to favor a political party, incumbent, or other person or group." "

13 hours ago, Ethan said:

Issue 1 would have passed without the poison pill of requiring the committee to use political voting patterns to draw districts primarily based on how they will be expected to vote with the goal making expected seat numbers equal to the statewide tally. Iowa by contrast forbids its commission from considering politics at all, and works exclusively from census data. 

Issue 1 would have passed if LaRose and the ballot board hadn’t blatantly lied about how it would work on the ballot language. 

35 minutes ago, Boomerang_Brian said:

Issue 1 would have passed if LaRose and the ballot board hadn’t blatantly lied about how it would work on the ballot language. 

I went to the actual text and read the actual proposed bill (at least the consequential sections). While I agree that this would likely passed with a different summary, I don't agree that the summary post court correction was inaccurate. Hence why I call it a poison pill. 

 

Gerrymandering is a loaded word, so I avoided using it above, but an appropriate summary of what you quoted is that the bill required bipartisan gerrymandering. 

Essentially Issue 1 rigs the maps to give us something approximating proportional representation. Too bad we can’t just do proportional representation or some mix of proportional + geographic districts.

 

 I’d still vote for it again though obviously given the limitations of our system. I hope they try again, if only to keep the pressure on the GOP but also maybe it could pass with a midterm electorate.

Edited November 13, 2024Nov 13 by mu2010

State Republicans did a good job confusing people on what gerrymandering really is. Drawing competitive, proportional districts to unwind the current gerrymandered districts is in itself not gerrymandering or rigging the maps. It's the literal opposite of gerrymandering. If done properly our representation would more or less mimic our political bias. There would still be a strong Republican majority in the state house and senate, but not a supermajority.

 

Edited November 13, 2024Nov 13 by Mendo

23 minutes ago, Mendo said:

State Republicans did a good job confusing people on what gerrymandering really is. Drawing competitive, proportional districts to unwind the current gerrymandered districts is in itself not gerrymandering or rigging the maps. It's the literal opposite of gerrymandering. If done properly our representation would more or less mimic our political bias. There would still be a strong Republican majority in the state house and senate, but not a supermajority.

Thanks for pointing this out. It's always wild to see people carry water for partisans who are clearly acting in bad faith. When DeWine suggested using the Iowa system instead, Ohio Capital Journal published a great piece that demonstrates while that suggestion was not being done in good faith and how that system is not a comparable example to Ohio.

 

To put a finer point on it, the data compiled by FiveThirtyEight when redistricting was happening across the country, shows how good the Michigan system worked out. The efficiency gap went from R+11.7 to D+0.3 while the partisan lean went down from R+5.7 to R+2.1. Meanwhile, Iowa had an efficiency gap of R+41.6 and a partisan seat lean of D+4.9. Additionally, there's plenty of examples on Dave's Redistricting App where users made better maps while using partisan data. The veto and editing clauses to the Iowa system have never been used because why would Republicans there even bother? They are getting maps in their favor. So sure, it's probably a better system than what we currently have but let's not kid ourselves that it's actually a good system that would serve Ohioans well.

Dev is right. 

 

And as long as the Rs in control of the state house have any say in the process at all, we will never get fair maps. The commission has to be truly independent.

50 minutes ago, Dev said:

Thanks for pointing this out. It's always wild to see people carry water for partisans who are clearly acting in bad faith. When DeWine suggested using the Iowa system instead, Ohio Capital Journal published a great piece that demonstrates while that suggestion was not being done in good faith and how that system is not a comparable example to Ohio.

 

To put a finer point on it, the data compiled by FiveThirtyEight when redistricting was happening across the country, shows how good the Michigan system worked out. The efficiency gap went from R+11.7 to D+0.3 while the partisan lean went down from R+5.7 to R+2.1. Meanwhile, Iowa had an efficiency gap of R+41.6 and a partisan seat lean of D+4.9. Additionally, there's plenty of examples on Dave's Redistricting App where users made better maps while using partisan data. The veto and editing clauses to the Iowa system have never been used because why would Republicans there even bother? They are getting maps in their favor. So sure, it's probably a better system than what we currently have but let's not kid ourselves that it's actually a good system that would serve Ohioans well.

 

It came out at the end of the election cycle that black organizations in Michigan have been very unhappy with their new redistricting, feeling that it diluted their representation.   I'd foresee the same issues here in terms of Democratic votes being geographically concentrated.

21 minutes ago, E Rocc said:

 

It came out at the end of the election cycle that black organizations in Michigan have been very unhappy with their new redistricting, feeling that it diluted their representation.   I'd foresee the same issues here in terms of Democratic votes being geographically concentrated.

And they fixed it. Making good, fair maps is not an impossibility although this is an inherent problem of having fixed sized single-winner districts. Using it as a weapon against attempts to formalize a process that would results in better maps is disingenuous.

DeWine (Sort of) Wants Redistricting Updates for Ohio

 

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine still thinks the state’s redistricting process would benefit from changes, and he plans to push the legislature to move forward with a plan similar to the one used by Iowa, where nonpartisan staff draw lines but maps are approved by lawmakers.

 

In comments made to reporters on Thursday, DeWine maintained an opinion he brought up first in July when he publicly opposed the redistricting reform in the general election’s Issue 1: the current system isn’t working, and the system being used in Iowa would bring necessary changes.

 

“It seems to me that it’s very appropriate for the legislature to start looking at this again,” DeWine said at a breakfast for the Ohio Legislative Correspondents Association.

 

More below:

https://columbusunderground.com/dewine-sort-of-wants-redistricting-updates-for-ohio-ocj1/

"A lot of people were saying, ‘We’re confused! We’re confused by Issue 1.’ ... Confusion means we don’t know, so we did our job,” Triantafilou said. “Confusing Ohioans was not such a bad strategy."

 

Imagine being this amoral and contemptuous of voters.

 

https://www.thenews-messenger.com/story/news/local/2025/01/14/ohio-gop-chair-brags-confusing-ohioans-during-election/77669351007/

 

23 hours ago, KJP said:

"A lot of people were saying, ‘We’re confused! We’re confused by Issue 1.’ ... Confusion means we don’t know, so we did our job,” Triantafilou said. “Confusing Ohioans was not such a bad strategy."

 

Imagine being this amoral and contemptuous of voters.

 

https://www.thenews-messenger.com/story/news/local/2025/01/14/ohio-gop-chair-brags-confusing-ohioans-during-election/77669351007/

 

 

Looking better and better.