Ohio redistricting thread

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/jpelzer/status/1699774694193250681?s=46

As I said upthread, this is all because of the provisions of the Redistricting commission ammendment.  Because there is the expectation from the plaintiffs perspective that everything will be resolved in 2025 in their favor, there is no gain from remapping now. Democrats already hold the intended maximum congressional districts,  and even if Brown loses the senate seat, he'll be carrying them all and providing a cushion.  Risk minimization is sensible here from the partisan view, though now everything is riding on the 2024 innitiative passing  

[Oryxslayer]

Now watch the nY high court side with the gop lol

Pretty gross to see red avatars rooting for disgusting gerrymander. You are an opponent of democracy.

I have no dog in that fight lol I just thought it would be funny if  NY and OH both stay the same when everybody was predicting the opposite
I would go even further than you and say that democrats are more supportive of gerrymandering than the gop now(though that wasn’t the case before). This is because they need it to get proportional maps in WI, PA etc. otherwise you get 6-2 R in WI and 10-7 R in PA. Not justifying it but just an observation

This is dumb for a lot of reasons, not least of which is that (by this metric, anyway) a "fair" Texas map would be like 22 or 23 Biden seats.

Obviously it doesn't apply in all cases but it still is undeniable that a fair map in 2012 in several states would have elected more democrats that one today in that same state due to different coalitions.

I'd have to look at this more closely but I think it's a close call. The 2012 Democratic largely coalition involved extremely blue urban areas and much less red rural areas. Dems have largely traded losses in urban and rural areas for gains in suburban areas. From a political geography perspective, though, Democrats still win urban areas and still lose rural areas, but they've flipped many suburbs. I think on balance political geography is probably better for Democrats now than it was then, at least in the House.

Especially because Obama actually won a number of the seats designed to elect Republicans in Michigan, Wisconsin, New Jersey, etc in 2008 but said Republicans still won easily for the environment.

Which is reinforced by the 2012 Gerrymanders. The number of crossover seats is comparable to today. 13 Obama - GOP seats, many which were marginal or Sandy-related, 9 Romney - Dem seats. Obviously a number of these changes are cause of new mappers in PA, VA, MI, etc, but Romney won more districts that Obama in 2012. It helps in FPTP to have one larger concentrated area where you win, rather than two narrow losses, no matter the types of those areas.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/RedistrictNet/status/1701599206811853025?t=_fQuPwi5DIBzXWp1o...

The commission still has to meet, buy now just for the legislature.  This is a case where incumbent protection is almost certainly the order of the day,  since dems have not enough seats right now to actually do anything,  and there are loads of marginal seats on both sides since that's how the commission faked following the court's orders. And some of these competitive seats are puposfully nonsensical, seeking a mathematical outcome with no concern for incumbents desires.

[Oryxslayer]

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/ohio-attorney-general-rejects-language-amendment-aimed-reforming-102510233

Can he theoretically just keep rejecting the language to ensure no redistricting reform ever ends up on the ballot? If so, why didn't he do so for other amendments such as abortion.

He can't, if it has enough signatures eventually there has to a vote on time. They had to get the Supreme Court to issue on 'confusions' around the wording of the 60% amendment and I think also the abortion one. Case in point, he initially had multiple complaints, now there was just one.


On another note, the present body tasked with legislative redistricting is in chaos over chairpersons and rules.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/darreldrowland/status/1704137010582000093?t=qbQikEiZX6m6Q_P3...

Currently the commission is turmoil when compared to last time, but the Dems are still moving. LaRose said previously that the 22nd would be the latest date before it could lead to local impacts in the run up to 2024, and the body still hasn't agreed to co-chairs. DeWine has called for a meeting tomorrow, we'll see what happens.

Edit: and DeWine announced he has COVID, so will he attend?

[Oryxslayer]

Unsurprisingly, the body advanced the GOP plan to be the basis for consideration by 4-2. There will be 3 fast-scheduled input meetings over the next week.





These maps are designed to protect the supermajorities for 2024, since that's the only year these plans are likely to matter,  but not exactly go much further than that. Lots of safe seats are not or barely touched. The GOP already has the seats they need, so most stuff they hold is redder when compared to the competitive-mander, as well as most Dem stuff gets bluer. For example SD-16 around Columbus where overperforming Stephanie Kunze is retiring gets fully conceded to the Dems in exchange for shoring up SD-03 that got flipped in 2022. HD-23 in Lake is seemingly they only Dem seat that would become hard to win again, and there are others that numerically replace it.  Doing all this does though require some creativity:

[Oryxslayer]

Unsurprisingly, the body advanced the GOP plan to be the basis for consideration by 4-2. There will be 3 fast-scheduled input meetings over the next week.


These maps are designed to protect the supermajorities for 2024, since that's the only year these plans are likely to matter,  but not exactly go much further than that. Lots of safe seats are not or barely touched. The GOP already has the seats they need, so most stuff they hold is redder when compared to the competitive-mander, as well as most Dem stuff gets bluer. For example SD-16 around Columbus where overperforming Stephanie Kunze is retiring gets fully conceded to the Dems in exchange for shoring up SD-03 that got flipped in 2022. HD-23 in Lake is seemingly they only Dem seat that would become hard to win again, and there are others that numerically replace it.  Doing all this does though require some creativity:

So in the state senate, they are finally giving up on scooping Dayton out of Montgomery county and attaching it to blood red adjacent counties rather than just keeping the remainder of the district within Montgomery county?

Even with the Courts now aligned in their favor, the commission is still bound by the 'sensibility' rules that come with the body. Counties larger than a state senate seat have to nest a district, and it needs to include all or a significant part of the largest municipality. This is probably the best they could do - separating the city from the western suburbs -when you take into account how senate seats have to nest 3 state house seats, and there has to be an AA access district that comprises Dayton.

But it's not like they need to hold Dayton. It's one of the few marginal seats up in Presidential years - so harder to see split-ticketing. Declining Dem strength in the NW meant the Mahoning Valley could be easily sunk by neighboring counties. The gains made there at the end of last decade in provide enough of a buffer in theory for there still to be a supermajority if all the 'forced-to-be-drawn' Biden-won seats that are up in 2024 flip - and they might since 2/3 are open.

But of course this all matters solely for 2024 cause if the commission goes through as expected, the 2026 maps will actually be out of the hands of politicians, and it'll probably be impossible for the GOP to win supermajorities on them.

[Oryxslayer]

Unsurprisingly, the body advanced the GOP plan to be the basis for consideration by 4-2. There will be 3 fast-scheduled input meetings over the next week.


These maps are designed to protect the supermajorities for 2024, since that's the only year these plans are likely to matter,  but not exactly go much further than that. Lots of safe seats are not or barely touched. The GOP already has the seats they need, so most stuff they hold is redder when compared to the competitive-mander, as well as most Dem stuff gets bluer. For example SD-16 around Columbus where overperforming Stephanie Kunze is retiring gets fully conceded to the Dems in exchange for shoring up SD-03 that got flipped in 2022. HD-23 in Lake is seemingly they only Dem seat that would become hard to win again, and there are others that numerically replace it.  Doing all this does though require some creativity:

So in the state senate, they are finally giving up on scooping Dayton out of Montgomery county and attaching it to blood red adjacent counties rather than just keeping the remainder of the district within Montgomery county?

Even with the Courts now aligned in their favor, the commission is still bound by the 'sensibility' rules that come with the body. Counties larger than a state senate seat have to nest a district, and it needs to include all or a significant part of the largest municipality. This is probably the best they could do - separating the city from the western suburbs -when you take into account how senate seats have to nest 3 state house seats, and there has to be an AA access district that comprises Dayton.

If this is the case then how were they able to get away with taking OH-01 out of Hamilton county?

In counties with a population exceeding the number of residents to be in a congressional district, the first of the following two steps that applies to the county must be taken by the mapmakers:

If a municipality located in a county contains a population exceeding the number of residents to be in a congressional district, then mapmakers would be required to include a significant portion of the municipality in the district and would be allowed to include other municipalities in the county whose residents have similar interests.

If a municipality located in a county contains between 100,000 residents and the number of residents in a congressional district, mapmakers would be prohibited from splitting the municipality. If a county includes two or more municipalities with that number of residents, then mapmakers would be prohibited from splitting the largest municipality.

This concerns congressional lines. Nothing preventing the split of Hamilton as long as Cincinnati is kept whole (it is) and the district is oriented around said city (70% in Hamilton).

State Senate: Composed of 3 contiguous House districts; Counties only split if contain more than the ideal Senate district population and, if so, remaining territory in the county can only be assigned to one adjoining Senate district. If not possible to draw House districts that would allow the Commission to comply with all House and Senate district requirements, Commission must violate as few Senate requirements as possible. [Ohio Const. art. XI, § 4]

State House: Max +/- 5% population deviation; Contiguous; Counties only split when necessary and, where feasible, no counties split more than once. Minimize splits of municipal corporations and townships containing more than 50% but less than 100% of the ideal district population; If necessary to split, only one municipal corporation or township can be split per House district. If not possible to comply with the above splitting rules for any particular district, the Commission must take the first of the following actions, in order of priority, that is possible: Split two municipalities whose contiguous portions don’t contain a population between 50% and 100% of the ideal population; Split one municipality whose contiguous portions contain between 50% and 100% of the ideal population; Split a single county once which contains between 95% and 105% of the ideal population; Include in two districts the remaining territory of a county containing more than 105% of the ideal population after that county has been divided into as many districts as it has ideal population for. [Ohio Const. art. XI, § 3]

Both: Commission must attempt to comply with all of the following: Compact; No plan drawn primarily to favor or disfavor a political party; Statewide proportion of districts whose voters favor each political party must correspond closely to the statewide preferences of Ohio voters. [Ohio Const. art. XI, § 6]

State legislative legalese. It's different and complex, but seemingly the various nesting and cut metrics basically necessitate it for a 4.x Stater House district county, if you are approaching it from the perspective of separating the city and the majority-minuity suburbs into two different districts. I'm not aware any of the maps the GOP drew this decade attempted to maintain the 2010 treatment of Dayton, with the exception of the very first draft that immediately got left on the cutting room floor. You'd think they would have tried if they could: this map for example makes SD-06 about 1% more Biden compared to the competitive-mander, a result of contorting the marginally-won HD-36 from a Biden+6 to Trump+7.5 and the packing it forces to the Dayton SH seat.

[Oryxslayer]

Some changes were made (not sure what), and these maps got unanimous support of the board and will be locked in for the next 8 years.

Unless the proposed amendment in circulation passes, at which point we will be back here in 2025. See you all then!

The Dayton Senate seat is 55.2% Biden now,  it gained Trotwood and lost Miamisburg.  That's probably the biggest change on the Senate map, SD-24 got a bit more R, so did a few others like SD-2.

The Dems floor got better, but kind of a hard ceiling of around ~12 or 13 seats now, and even that'll be tough.

House: https://davesredistricting.org/join/6c57f54e-eee4-4f75-83b8-5f825f6cf9e2 State House

Compared to the initial draft there remains a few more competitive D leaning seats, mostly around Cleveland to the point that no Dem is actually drawn out of their seat politically. The 11th seat in Columbus remains swingy rather than Safe R, and there actually is now a seat winnable for Dems in Delaware.

Also there is a third Safe D seat in Toledo to the one R seat, whereas under the competative-mander it was two GOP-won hyper-marginal seats, and in the first draft a R seat and more Dem-favoring swing seat. So someone must be retiring.

Looking overall at the House map, while things seemingly get overall worse for Dems, the concentration of competition to fewer seats that are more winnable than previously makes immediate success more possible. It's seems more likely than not the Dems will break the supermajority there for what its worth, if the environment isn't radically different or they blow candidate nominations. That must be the House caucus cashing in their goodwill from the fight over the speakership in January, and why the dems voted for their maps. And in their minds, the maps will be gone in 2025 so that immediate goal is enough.

Also, why the absurd treatment of Athens? It's not outvoting those neighbors needed for population equity under normal circumstances.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/jbalmert/status/1707019905479196872?t=IOiO0x421MYQ0jpUsgFy0A...

That neatly summarizes it doesn't it? Dems and Reps both get something of what they wanted, transformed competitive seats into safer ones when viable, and protected their own. But the big picture is still not good, nor is it a rational map - just look at inner Wood and Athens.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/jbalmert/status/1707019905479196872?t=IOiO0x421MYQ0jpUsgFy0A...

That neatly summarizes it doesn't it? Dems and Reps both get something of what they wanted, transformed competitive seats into safer ones when viable, and protected their own. But the big picture is still not good, nor is it a rational map - just look at inner Wood and Athens.

Also what’s the deal with scooping out Youngstown and putting it in a red district?

It's not? Unless you are referring to the state senate in which case the Mahoning valley counties have been separated for a while. They'll only come back together in some form under the citizens commission, since it'll be a marginal senate seat in a region that could be all R.



This was the compatitive-mander previously in place for 2022. It did scoop out Youngstown and have two Trump seats. This was done because under the statewide average election data ordered to be used, both seats were competitive, even D-favoring. So the GOP could create a new seat for themselves while pretending to create a new Dem one.

Except that's not what happened. Republican's screwed up their candidates and ended up with nobody in HD-59. So the Dem won with 40%, to two independents that divided most of the rest, despite not exactly being very Conservative.



This is the map that just was approved. The districts return to their original numbering from last decade, with 58 in the city and 59 in the exterior, rather than the other way. The incumbents in both districts likely just swap given their residencies. This version is 56-43 Biden, 55.5-44.5 Ryan. While that could be better for Dems if the seat contained Boardman and nearer suburbs, they are unlikely to lose this seat since it's now close to 30% African American. 

[Oryxslayer]

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/ohio-attorney-general-rejects-language-amendment-aimed-reforming-102510233

Can he theoretically just keep rejecting the language to ensure no redistricting reform ever ends up on the ballot? If so, why didn't he do so for other amendments such as abortion.

He can't, if it has enough signatures eventually there has to a vote on time. They had to get the Supreme Court to issue on 'confusions' around the wording of the 60% amendment and I think also the abortion one. Case in point, he initially had multiple complaints, now there was just one.


On another note, the present body tasked with legislative redistricting is in chaos over chairpersons and rules.

https://twitter.com/mcpli/status/1708930275797840148?t=UPUfxAJ_JgMOErctoRApWQ&am...

To the surprise of nobody. Once again,  you legitimacy cannot attempt to run out the clock like this. Deadline for signatures is the easily achievable July 2024.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/jbalmert/status/1707019905479196872?t=IOiO0x421MYQ0jpUsgFy0A...

That neatly summarizes it doesn't it? Dems and Reps both get something of what they wanted, transformed competitive seats into safer ones when viable, and protected their own. But the big picture is still not good, nor is it a rational map - just look at inner Wood and Athens.

Well, maybe if someone had actually done their job in 2022 and struck down the Republican gerrymanders swiftly instead of lztting them run out the clock until it was too late to remedy, we wouldn't be there. But no, the OHSC had to take their sweet ass time and now obviously the new GOP hack court has no interest in even upholding the state constitution.

Additional context for others: the State Supreme Court with a different republican now sitting in O'Conner's former seat upheld the gerrymanders recently passed. It's the culmination of the game started during 2022.

But nobody really cares about that fight anymore. The ballot amendment now in circulation is where potential power lies.

[Oryxslayer]

Indeed, back in 2018, when 538 released its "Atlas of Redistricting," it found that in OH, the most pro-D gerrymander they could come up with at the time was 8D-8R (with three swing seats - two of them R-leaning and one of them D-leaning). This goes to show that political geography mostly favors Republicans in OH, but I still think that a map drawn by a truly independent commission and/or a court-appointed special master would most likely be 8R-7D.

That's definitely more of a recent development (specifically, Trump). Ohio was one of a few states I liked to play around with on DRA in the pre-Trump days. You could get 7-8 Obama districts (out of 16) in the northern part of the state from Toledo to Youngstown. The erosion of support in the NE part of the state has been crippling to Democratic chances in the state. Only two things have really changed to benefit Democrats (though they don't come close to balancing out the other trends): it's easy to draw a safe Democratic seat within Hamilton County and the Columbus area can now easily support two safe Democratic seats. Republicans actually realized the latter was happening during the 2011 redistricting. Before that, Franklin County was split 3-ways. I think Republicans were considering a 4-way split before finally conceding a Columbus seat to Democrats.

That is correct about Columbus. And really Columbus has behaved more like a sun belt city than any other Ohio point of comparison. Perhaps the growth of Franklin being measured in Hundreds of Thousands of people between recent decades has something to do with it. Obama was the first Dem presidential candidate to win the county by more than 10% in almost 100 years, it made sense for the GOP to draw a map for the 2000s that treated the city like Cincinnati. But the county has just continued to grow and it's partisanship now is comparable to Cuyahoga. Failing to create a pack there in 2010 would have led to some interesting elections after 2016. And now it's large enough to have a second seat when paired with a few suburbs, which the commission absolutely will do if given a mandate from the voters.