Critics have been saying the state’s redistricting process is broken. An effort to overhaul it last year failed, but there are new calls for changes. As the process to draw a new 15-district congressional map moves into a second phase, it’s been fraught with disagreement over the most basic parts. That was evident in the first meeting of the Ohio Redistricting Commission this week.
At its first meeting on Tuesday, the seven members of the commission were divided on the basic rules that should used for the meetings. Co-chair Brian Stewart (R-Asheville) wanted to adopt one parliamentary process.
“At this time, I’d like to suggest we use Mason’s manual of legislative procedure, the 2020 edition," he said, adding that Mason's rules are used in the Ohio General Assembly.
But Democrats including Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio (D-Lakewood) said Mason's rules were fine but she pushed for more guidelines.
“What we wanted to add were some elements of how many meetings to have and there were a couple of other items,” Antonio said. She explained those items specified the number of meetings the commission would have and defined what constitutes a quorum. And she said there's precedent for those rules.
“These items came from actually [Republican] Auditor [Keith] Faber when we had the redistricting commission before. He had suggested them, and we thought these were actually good ideas,” Antonio said.
Votes were taken. The five Republicans on the panel sided with Stewart. Antonio and House Minority Leader Dani Isaacsohn (D-Cincinnati) voted in favor of the expanded rules.
Later in the meeting, Stewart came back and made an announcement.
"I feel like this is the part in Jeopardy where Alex Trebek comes in and says, we have a small correction," Stewart quipped. "The able lawyers have alerted me that actually pursuant to Article 11, Section 1B2A of the Ohio Constitution, we actually cannot adopt rules without at least one vote of the minority party."
Stewart said the commission would proceed through that meeting without rules. But he also said he and Antonio would collaborate and have additional discussions about adopting rules ahead of the next commission meeting.
There's no word yet on when that next meeting might be scheduled. The commission has until Oct. 31 to adopt a bipartisan map. If that doesn't happen, Republicans, who hold a supermajority in the Ohio Legislature, can adopt a map without a single Democratic vote that would last for six years.
Ohio is currently represented by 10 Republicans and five Democrats in Congress. Republicans have yet to publicly unveil a new map they'd be willing to support. A map introduced by Democrats last month that would typically yield eight Republican members and seven Democratic members failed to get Republican support.
