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Issue 1 on the November ballot will remove politicians from the business of drawing voting maps. In Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman’s view, Issue I is “gerrymandering at its finest.”

The irony is striking. Huffman and Ohio’s Redistricting Commission disregarded seven orders from the Ohio Supreme Court to observe the constitutional mandate to draw maps that would not “favor or disfavor a political party” and, instead, drew maps that favored Republicans.

This level of contempt for a constitutional requirement was outdone by the three Republicans, including Secretary of State Frank LaRose, on the five-member Ohio Ballot Board, who pushed through the language that will describe Issue 1 on this November’s ballot.

The ballot language starts off with a pants-on-fire lie: Issue 1 will “Repeal constitutional protections against gerrymandering … [and] Establish a new taxpayer-funded commission of appointees to gerrymander the boundaries” of maps so as to “favor either of the two largest political parties” in Ohio. Republican board member Senator Theresa Gavarone came up with the idea of characterizing Issue 1 as a plot to gerrymander state maps.

The reality is, the constitutional amendment that Issue 1 proposes will create an independent commission—politicians cannot be members—that will “ban partisan gerrymandering and prohibit the use of redistricting plans that favor one political party and disfavor others.”

Memo to Ms. Gavarone: 53% of Ohioans voted for Donald Trump in 2020, but in 2022 Republicans won 68% of Ohio house seats and 78% of Ohio senate seats—because of how the maps are now drawn. It’s this type of lopsided map drawing that gave birth to Issue 1.

It’s stunning how politicians, when threatened by a constitutional amendment that will preclude them from gerrymandering districts to their advantage, cry out that Issue 1 will result in gerrymandering. The statements and actions of Huffman, Gavarone and LaRose evidence that self-awareness is a virtue in short supply these days.

The problem is, too many politicians put winning elections above all else. Case in point: after George Santo, R-NY, was expelled from the U.S. House of Representatives on a bi-partisan vote for lying, a Democrat won his seat. Taking the high road was a “big mistake,” said Rep. Troy R-Texas. “We have to learn how to win elections,” he explained, and “the only way you can win elections, is that you have to get into the slop with the pigs.”

Now there’s a thought we should be teaching our children—put self-interest and bad behavior above virtue and the good of the country.

Governor Mike DeWine, R, has admitted the process “doesn’t work very well.” He said this after voting in favor of the maps that were held to be unconstitutional by the Ohio Supreme Court. When confronted with the prospect of removing politicians from the process of map drawing, he called Issue 1 “misguided.”

DeWine favors a plan adopted by Iowa which calls on the state’s bipartisan Legislative Services Agency to draw maps for approval by the legislature. But that system allows for the legislature to take control of map drawing. Once the Agency’s third map is rejected, the legislature can draw the maps its wants. The potential for legislative gamesmanship should be obvious.

Critics argue that the independent commission Issue 1 wants to create will not be accountable to voters. The critics overlook that right now our politicians are not accountable to voters; they draw maps that make it nearly impossible for members of the other party to win an election. If politicians were to put democracy above party, there would be no need for Issue 1.

The desire to stay in office is more seductive than the sound of the sirens in the Odyssey. It’s too much for politicians to resist. But when politicians succumb to the call, it is the voters who suffer. We have to help politicians and relieve them of a temptation they cannot resist.

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Jack D’Aurora writes for Consider This by JD

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