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Less than a month after a pro-democracy coalition managed to get an amendment on the ballot this fall that would, finally, make redistricting in Ohio fairer, the Republican secretary of state is trying to skew its language to ensure the GOP can continue to rig the Buckeye State’s congressional maps, the group said.
At issue is the wording of the amendment that the Ohio Ballot Board adopted this week.
Instead of pointing out that the initiative would make redistricting less partisan, it does the opposite.
“The proposed amendment would: Repeal constitutional protections against gerrymandering approved by nearly three-quarters of Ohio electors participating in the statewide elections of 2015 and 2018, and eliminate the longstanding ability of Ohio citizens to hold their representatives accountable for establishing fair state legislative and congressional districts,” the language states in part.
“Citizens Not Politicians,” the group behind the ballot initiatives, said this language is a distortion of what the amendment hopes to achieve, and vows to sue.
“It’s one grotesque abuse of power after another from politicians desperate to protect the current system that only benefits themselves and their lobbyist friends,” said Maureen O’Connor, a retired Republican Ohio Supreme Court chief justice who supports the anti-gerrymandering measure. “Do the politicians not see how angry voters are when they keep breaking the law to protect their own power?”
She noted that Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who is responsible for the language of the amendment, has been a staunch supporter of various congressional maps in the past that the courts have deemed to be unconstitutional.
“[And] this week he violates the Constitution with objectively false ballot language,” she stated. “It’s a desperate abuse of power, and it’s not going to work.”
This is how misleading the proposed ballot language is: Yes, the amendment would repeal two previous attempts to make Ohio’s redistricting process less partisan. However, both of them were hijacked by Republicans who rendered them ineffective.
In reality, the new amendment would establish a commission consisting of five Republicans, five Democrats, and five independents.
However, elected officials, active lobbyists, and political consultants would not be allowed to serve on the commission, and the redrawn districts would have to meet certain criteria to ensure they represent Ohio’s population as much as possible.
None of that is reflected in LaRose’s language.
“This is just another example of why we need to get politicians out of redistricting,” said Jen Miller, the executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio. “They ignore the law over and over, insult voters, and do anything they can to protect themselves and their cronies.”
However, Citizens not Politicians believes that LaRose’s language is so misleading that it can be challenged in court.
“I’ve never seen ballot language this dishonest and so blatantly illegal,” said Don McTigue, an attorney who represented the group before the Ohio Ballot board.
“Ohio’s constitution and Ohio state law explicitly require the Secretary of State and Ballot Board to provide voters with accurate and fair language about constitutional amendments when they vote,” McTigue added. “It’s insulting to voters, and I’m embarrassed for the Secretary of State.”
Specifically, Ohio law requires that the language of amendments that appear on the ballot has to be impartial and not try to sway voters to side with one side or another.
That, Citizens Not Politicians argues, is clearly not the case here. No matter what the language ends up being, the group hopes that these latest shenanigans will help convince Ohioans to pass the amendment when it appears on the ballot in November.
