Photo by Ken Coleman, States Newsroom.

Opponents of Ohio’s Issue 1 redistricting reform claim it would be bad for communities of color. Supporters of the proposal to replace politicians with a citizens commission point to the ways the current maps crack and pack Black voters.

The Issue 1 proposal would replace the current Ohio Redistricting Commission made up of seven elected officials with a 15-member commission made up of citizens.

The current commission includes the Ohio governor, auditor, and secretary of state, along with four lawmakers — one from each party in each chamber of the legislature. The 15-member citizens commission being proposed would be made up of five Republicans, five Democrats, and five independents, selected by a bipartisan panel of former judges.

Voting yes on Issue 1 would create the 15-member Ohio Citizens Redistricting Commission. Voting no on Issue 1 would keep the current Ohio Redistricting Commission.

Arguments for and against the ballot initiative have been targeted at communities of color, with both sides saying minority representation will be affected by the results of Issue 1.

In a press conference at the Ohio Statehouse, state Sen. Michele Reynolds, R-Canal Winchester, brought former legislator John Barnes and two other Ohioans to urge voters to reject the ballot measure, claiming the changes “could fragment cohesive minority voting blocks, diluting our political influence.”

“I am deeply concerned about the disastrous effects that Issue 1 will have on the Black state legislative and congressional districts in Ohio,” said Reynolds, who is one of five Black members of the 33-member Ohio Senate, and the only Republican.

One of the Democratic members, state Sen. Catherine D. Ingram, who is also vice president of the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus, responded to Reynold’s press conference by saying Issue 1 “would ensure fair maps are drawn and expand opportunities for greater representation across our state, beyond the areas that have historically confined us.”

“For generations, Black Americans have faced disenfranchisement, and gerrymandering adds an additional barrier to our adequate representation,” Ingram said in a statement.

Issue 1 would create a 15-person citizens redistricting commission to replace the current commission. After a vetting process by a bipartisan panel of judges, the selected citizen commissioners would be required to hold public hearings and conduct the drawing of Statehouse and congressional maps in a transparent process, and create maps that receive a majority vote of the commission.

Drawing the maps would require adherence to federal laws like the Voting Rights Act and the statewide partisan preferences of the voters of Ohio.

The current process

In 2021 and 2022, Republican partisans on the commission produced five Ohio Statehouse maps and two U.S. Congressional district maps that were struck down as unconstitutionally gerrymandered by a bipartisan majority on the Ohio Supreme Court.

In 2023, the commission unanimously passed Statehouse maps with bipartisan support, although Democrats said they only supported them because redistricting reform was on the way and if they had voted no on them then the Republicans on the commission would have produced even more gerrymandered maps.

Despite the fact that the congressional map was never revised to correct the errors found by the state’s highest court, it is the map being used for the 2024 election.

A recent League of Women Voters of Ohio analysis of the current congressional map found that in Massillon, what’s considered a “large politically cohesive African American population” was split between the 6th and 13th Congressional districts.

“Rather than keeping this clear community of interest united in one congressional district, mapmakers sliced Massillon into two pieces, specifically cutting off areas with large concentrations of minority voters from each other,” according to research analysis done by University of Cincinnati professor David Niven.

Niven called the one-third of Stark County voters put in the 6th district “castaway voters,” citing research that said being a “castaway” voter “inhibits political information flows, mobilization and ultimately, representation.”

“The political consequences of landing on the other side of those lines are powerful,” Niven wrote.

The boundary-drawing of certain current congressional districts are “inexplicable” and “drawn in service of confusion not representation,” according to Niven’s research.

The 1st district, for example, borders the 8th district in a “textbook gerrymandering maneuver — dividing a neighborhood and town and causing confusion on who lives in which district, serving no legitimate purpose,” Niven wrote.

“Here’s a congressional district where people on the southern end of the district live in the shadow of Ohio’s third largest city with all its urban needs and opportunities, and people on the northern end have a local government that advertises when someone loses their mittens in the park,” Niven stated.

Cracking and packing

Voting rights advocates tend to agree with this assessment, saying the splitting of communities means less visibility, and less visibility means a lack of attention from people who purport to represent them.

“What we’ve seen with supermajorities is communities are left out of conversations,” said Deidra Reese, director of voter engagement for the Ohio Organizing Collaborative and supporter of Issue 1. “Those issues that are coming from communities that have a smaller presence in those bodies just don’t get to have those issues elevated.”

Important issues in communities of color, like in other communities, can include things like health care, economic issues, gun law reform and hunger. Without competitive districts that create the need for representatives and senators to engage with constituents of all kinds, Reese said legislation won’t match what is needed.

“When you shut the door on people when you pass policies … it’s a disservice and what happens is African Americans just don’t get representation,” Reese said.

Infant and maternal mortality rates were noted as a big concern for Black communities, which see disproportionate rates compared to their white counterparts.

The LWV analysis showed some congressional districts combine those two vastly different mortality rates, like the 9th, 12th and 2nd districts. The 9th district holds Lucas County, with one of the highest rates of infant mortality and Wood County, one of the lowest. The 12th district includes the high rates in Holmes County, and the low rates in Guernsey County. Ohio’s 2nd district has Lawrence County’s high infant mortality rates and Scioto County’s low rates.

“Again, this data begs an essential question,” the LWV study ponders, “How could any elected leader craft policy solutions for their constituencies, when the needs within their sprawling, contorted districts are so far apart?”

Kayla Griffin, president of the Cleveland branch of the NAACP, said the fact that the district maps are still unfair despite previous legislative redistricting reforms in 2015 and 2018 leaves questions about how closely the process was even followed by the elected officials on the Ohio Redistricting Commission.

“I think that becomes a serious problem that erodes the trust and the democracy that we have,” Griffin said.

An even bigger problem that Griffin and other advocates are dealing with is the concern from many Black voters that their vote doesn’t hold weight under the current maps, and therefore won’t make much different in the November general election.

Those talking to voters are trying to focus on the wins, most notably the rejection of a constitutional amendment to make it harder to amend the state’s founding document, and the approval of a ballot initiative that enshrined reproductive rights into that same constitution.

“That is how our vote counts, that is how our voices are heard.” Griffin said. “I’m letting folks know that we can do this again.”