As we all know by now, all four of Reform Ohio Now's amendments were defeated on Tuesday. Issue 4, which represented an attempt to create more competitive legislative districts in a state where elections for the state legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives are rarely decided by less than 20 points, garnered only 30 percent of the vote.
But even if Issue 4 is dead, the idea behind it is very much alive. Ohio House Republicans - yes, Republicans - have stated that the redistricting process needs to be fixed, and to their credit, they have asked Democrats and leaders of RON to join them. Indeed, Republicans typically prefaced their opposition to Issue 4 by saying that the redistricting system needed to be fixed, but Issue 4 wasn't the way to do it.
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GOP ASKS FOR HELP DRAWING DISTRICTS
Party that helped defeat Issue 4 wants input from reform group
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
One day after they helped crush a ballot issue that would have changed how Ohio draws political districts, Republicans yesterday said they're looking for a better way to do the same thing.
"The message that was sent (Tuesday) night is we don't want the solution to come from the left or the right," House Speaker Jon A. Husted said. "We have to look at it in a way that's not just one side trying to win over the other side."
The Kettering Republican spoke yesterday to Ed Jerse, campaign director for Reform Ohio Now, the coalition of Democratic-leaning groups that unsuccessfully pushed four election-altering amendments, including one, Issue 4, requiring the drawing of competitive state and congressional districts.
"We've expressed to them that if they were interested, we are going to lead this effort and would like to talk to them about it," Husted said.
[Ohio GOP chairman Robert T.] Bennett acknowledged his party's commitment to revamp the redistricting process, saying he hoped that fixing the system "would be a bipartisan thing."
The state leans only slightly Republican, but gerrymandered district maps have helped the GOP control nearly two-thirds of legislative and congressional seats.
Rep. Kevin DeWine, R-Fairborn, is taking the lead on developing a new map-drawing process and gathering bipartisan support. He envisions a bipartisan panel that would draw districts based on principles of compactness and communities of interest, instead of drawing lines that simply favor the party in power.
"At the same time, you want to inject some measure of competition into the process," DeWine said.
With uncertainty about which party will emerge victorious in November 2006 and establish a foothold for controlling the line-drawing process in 2011, now is the best time to pursue a change, DeWine said.
Jerse said he's interested in working with Republicans on a new system, saying they raised valid points during the campaign about the need to keep some communities together.
House Minority Leader Chris Redfern, D-Catawba Island, said he's also ready to work with GOP leaders on a bipartisan board that is a "more logical, fairer approach to redistricting."
I spent a lot of time over the past two months volunteering for RON, and it sucked to see all four RON amendments go down to defeat. I was especially disappointed in Issue 4's poor showing, but I will be the first to admit that it suffered from its complexity. But if we helped raise public (and legislative) consciousness on the evils of gerrymandering and the importance of competitive districts, maybe it was all worth it. Time will tell. For now, let's keep the BS detectors on, but also give all participants - including the GOP - credit for attempting a fair solution to a long-standing problem.