The Ohio Supreme Court issued a ruling on Monday that largely upholds the ballot language for Issue 1, the proposed amendment to the state constitution that would change the system of how political boundaries are drawn for state lawmakers and Congress members.
The court ordered a couple changes to the ballot language, which was drafted by Republicans. But its 4-3 Republican majority left most of the language intact, including a title section that says the measure will create a new redistricting commission “not subject to removal by voters.” That’s the Republicans’ way of describing an appointed 15-member citizens’ commission that would replace a Republican-controlled panel of elected officials if voters approve the amendment in November.
Is this the end of the legal battle?
The decision should mark the end of the legal fight over the issue, since ballot language must be finalized by Thursday so ballots are ready for the first wave of early voting by military members that starts on Friday. Early voting starts for everyone else on Oct. 8.
And voters should know by Wednesday what the ballot language actually will say after the Ohio Ballot Board meets Wednesday to make the tweaks the court ordered.
Why does this matter?
The ballot language only summarizes Issue 1, and has no effect on what it would do if voters approve it. But academic research has shown that ballot language can be very important when it comes to ballot issues. That’s because while many voters will have strong feelings about partisan candidates running for office, such as this year’s presidential election, they may not know much at all about ballot issues.
State Republican officials have various reasons for opposing Issue 1. But the bottom line is they believe it likely will cause them to lose seats in Congress and in the state legislature. They also expect the campaign backing the amendment will outspend them when it comes to airing TV ads that could help fill in the blanks for voters. So the Ballot Board gives them a chance to make an impression on voters directly by summarizing what they see as the key points of Issue 1, which they think is a bad idea.
The state constitution requires any ballot-issue summaries to be accurate and neutral, which was the basis for the court case in the first place.
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Who is this decision good for?
Both sides of the dispute – Citizens Not Politicians, the campaign group behind Issue 1, and Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who helped write the language – declared victory following the ruling. Technically, Citizens Not Politicians won the case since the lawsuit they filed that led to Monday’s decision will end up forcing Republicans on the Ballot Board to change their preferred language. The court said the ballot board inaccurately described two sections: under what circumstances people could sue to challenge political maps if the amendment is approved, and how citizens could offer their input to map drawers while the maps are under construction.
But Monday’s decision is a clear victory for Republicans. It left most of their ballot language intact, including the title and another part that says the amendment will require the new redistricting commission to “gerrymander” districts to favor either Republicans or Democrats while eliminating anti-gerrymandering reforms voters overwhelmingly approved in 2015 and 2018.
Republicans developed this verbiage to describe a section of the amendment that explicitly bars gerrymandering in favor of either party by requiring the new redistricting commission to draw maps that favor Republicans and Democrats to win a share of districts in line with each party’s share of the statewide vote. The new “proportionality” requirement would rate higher in priority than other factors, like keeping districts compact.
Republicans who oppose the amendment say this language itself is a form of gerrymandering, predicting it will force map drawers to design strangely shaped districts based on political factors. Monday’s court decision agreed with that assessment, citing past court cases involving “bipartisan” gerrymandering that occurred at the expense of independent voters.
But amendment backers wrote the language the way they did because Republicans argued similar language in the 2015 and 2018 reforms was only optional, leading to a lengthy legal fight earlier this decade that eventually led Issue 1 backers to push for another change to redistricting in Ohio.
Is the ruling a surprise?
No. The same Ohio Supreme Court issued two similar rulings last year ordering changes to ballot language for two related proposed amendments – one in August that would have made it harder to change the state constitution, and one in November that enshrined abortion and other reproductive rights in the state constitution.
In both those cases, the court’s 4-3 Republican majority ordered the Ballot Board to tweak the language while avoiding requiring wholesale change and, like on Monday, what those justices described as “wordsmithing.”
What would Issue 1 do?
Issue 1 would replace the seven-member Ohio Redistricting Commission, which is currently controlled by Republicans thanks to their success in the 2022 state election, with a 15-member commission made up of equal parts Republicans, Democrats and political independents.
Members of the new commission would be chosen by a bipartisan panel of retired judges. Politicos, including elected officials, lobbyists and their immediate family members, would be barred from serving on the commission.
The Ohio Redistricting Commission is in charge of redistricting, the process of designing state legislative and congressional district maps. The details of how the districts are drawn can make a big difference in the state’s political representation, since map drawers can look at past election results to predict how the new districts might vote. Under the current maps, Republicans hold about 66% of Ohio’s congressional and state legislative seats – giving them a veto-proof majority in the General Assembly – although their share of the vote is closer to 56%.
