The process for drawing legislative district boundaries in Ohio allows the party with control of reapportionment, Republicans or Democrats, to draw those lines in ways that protect its incumbent officeholders and advance its own interests. Partisan redistricting in Ohio has negative consequences, including a growing number of uncompetitive legislative elections, overrepresentation of the dominant party in the legislature, and greater polarization in state government.
Ohio Citizen Action has been working on redistricting reform since 1999. We believe that the power to draw Ohio’s legislative and congressional district boundaries should be vested in a commission which ideally would be independent and nonpartisan or, at a minimum, bipartisan. In addition to satisfying certain traditional reapportionment requirements such as contiguity, population equality, and protection of minority rights, redistricting should take competitiveness into account.
