Ohio redistricting thread

[Meatball Ron]

So much for Republican gerrymandering. But Dems getting >80% of the districts in Illinois is totally fine. Makes sense.

there's a bill that can be passed if the republicans don't like it.

Exactly. One party wants to ban gerrymandering at a national level, the other doesn't. So Election Guy's argument is totally in bad faith as usual.

[GALeftist]

So much for Republican gerrymandering. But Dems getting >80% of the districts in Illinois is totally fine. Makes sense.

there's a bill that can be passed if the republicans don't like it.

Exactly. One party wants to ban gerrymandering at a national level, the other doesn't. So Election Guy's argument is totally in bad faith as usual.

Also isn't the whole argument for gerrymandering that it ought to be handled at the state level and that federal standards would be a massive overreach or whatever? This is what handling it at the state level looks like! Ohio's maps violated state law, while Illinois's maps don't. Therefore, Ohio's maps got struck down and Illinois's maps didn't. This is as it should be. Either it's possible to have a coherent federal definition of when district lines are and aren't permissible (in which case why on earth aren't Republicans signing onto a bill outlining this definition?), or it's not, in which case the complaint is nonsense. Can't have it both ways!

[Unelectable Bystander]

Is there a standalone anti-gerrymandering bill that republicans are refusing to sign? My understanding is that it’s packaged with 25 different liberal priorities. You don’t get to take credit for supporting a popular position when you know that it has no chance of passing

[Nyvin]

Is there a standalone anti-gerrymandering bill that republicans are refusing to sign? My understanding is that it’s packaged with 25 different liberal priorities. You don’t get to take credit for supporting a popular position when you know that it has no chance of passing

Republicans can certainly produce a bill to ban gerrymandering.   They haven't so far. 

HR1 did pass the House btw - The only reason it hasn't passed the Senate is due to Republican opposition.

[coloradocowboi]

Is there a standalone anti-gerrymandering bill that republicans are refusing to sign? My understanding is that it’s packaged with 25 different liberal priorities. You don’t get to take credit for supporting a popular position when you know that it has no chance of passing

These “liberal priorities” include ensuring disabled people have the right to vote and that law abididng citizens have the right to vote. Kinda like our constitution mandates…

The truth is that the GOP will make up any excuse to do anything, talking out of one hole about how offended they are by the Illinois gerrymander, and out the other about how gerrymandering is a necessary evil. To answer your question, anyway, yes there was a stand-alone gerrymandering bill that couldn’t get a vote in a GOP Congress. They could also write their own bill but won’t, because in the world outside of the both-sides-ism plaguing some people’s minds, only the democrats have any interest in ending gerrymandering which is why only they have ever tried to do so….

[Gass3268]

https://twitter.com/AndrewJTobias/status/1483552932968771588?s=20
https://twitter.com/AndrewJTobias/status/1483554428955283468?s=20
https://twitter.com/AndrewJTobias/status/1483555408262447115?s=20

[politicallefty]

So much for Republican gerrymandering. But Dems getting >80% of the districts in Illinois is totally fine. Makes sense.

there's a bill that can be passed if the republicans don't like it.

Exactly. One party wants to ban gerrymandering at a national level, the other doesn't. So Election Guy's argument is totally in bad faith as usual.

The right-wing literally doesn't want anything done about gerrymandering.

I apologize for sharing a post from Hugh Hewitt, but it's from yesterday and it's worth understanding what some people are going for in this country. I'm not even going to pick apart everything that is wrong with that article. It's simply worth showing upfront what the other side wants. We were one vote away from SCOTUS striking down independent commissions in 2015. They want the Supreme Court to do their dirty work for them: wipe out all independent commissions, strike down any and all state amendments/laws constraining state legislatures from drawing Congressional districts, and eliminate the VRA once and for all. Their view is that state legislatures should have absolute plenary power to draw the lines however they want. I don't need to be hyperbolic. It's all right there in black and white.

That mindset is exactly why Congress needs to act with haste to establish national standards. Even a strict conservative will have a hard time trying to strike down a law passed by Congress's authority under the Elections Clause.

[Nyvin]

Reading through the court order pretty thoroughly I put together a map of what the court expects.

Court Order for Congressional Redistricting:
https://www.supremecourt.ohio.gov/rod/docs/pdf/0/2022/2022-ohio-89.pdf

1. A district entirely within Hamilton County that doesn't split the black community
Yes, the black community in Hamilton County is mentioned a few times in the court order.  I wouldn't expect the chunk (~44k) of Hamilton that goes to a different district to come from Forest Park or the surrounding Central North area of the county as that has significant black population.

page 35

Dr. Rodden similarly found that any attempt to “minimize splits and
keep Cincinnati-area communities together would produce a majority-Democratic
district.” The enacted plan, he concluded, carves out Hamilton County’s northern
Black population from its surroundings neighborhoods and combines it with a mostly
rural district that ends 85 miles to the north, extracts Cincinnati from its immediate
inner-ring suburbs and combines the city proper with Warren County via a narrow
corridor, and extracts Cincinnati’s eastern suburbs and combines them with
“extremely rural” counties to the east.

page 36

Alternative plans submitted to the General Assembly, Dr. Rodden noted, kept metro
Cincinnati together in a compact district within Hamilton County, avoided splitting
the Black community, and split the county only once. Dr. Rodden concluded that
the splits in Hamilton County “are clearly not necessary for any reason other than
partisan advantage."

I went with the north eastern section of the county as a middle ground, since I expect the Republicans will want to keep the heavily Republican western quarter of the county in OH-1.



This is easily the most cut and dry portion of the court order.  Simple as it gets.

2. Three compact districts in and around Cleveland, no special "tentacles" or narrow passages connecting districts together.  Summit County kept whole?

A little more vague here, but it appears the court doesn't look kindly on the narrow little connections that the current districts 7, 13, and 14 make in the northeast.  Summit county is also mentioned as being split for no reason other than partisanship, and that the areas to the south and west of Cleveland should belong to a competitive or Democratic leaning district.

page 37

Dr. Rodden concluded that the enacted plan splits Summit County by
cutting Akron off from its eastern Democratic-leaning suburbs, placing those suburbs
in a “long, narrow north-south corridor that is, in one spot, less than one mile wide”
and connecting those areas with highly Republican rural areas up to 70 miles away.

Dr. Rodden further noted that rather than combining Akron with its own suburbs, the
enacted plan combines the city with Medina County in District 13 and “the most
Republican outer exurbs of Cleveland.”

Alternative plans, he noted, mostly kept Summit County together. Dr. Rodden concluded that District 13 “appears to have been crafted as part of an effort to make sure there is only one very Democratic district in Northeast Ohio.”

page 39

Dr. Imai concluded that the enacted plan overly packs Democratic
voters into District 11—the district that includes Cleveland—and that the
surrounding districts were drawn to “crack the remaining Democratic voters outside
of Cleveland and in the cities of Lorain and Akron.”

As a result, in northeast Ohio, the enacted plan creates three Republican-leaning districts and one competitive district, even though Dr. Imai’s simulated plans generally show that the areas south and west of Cleveland would otherwise belong to a competitive or Democratic-
leaning district. Dr. Chen similarly found that the Cleveland-based district was “less
geographically compact than is reasonable for a Cleveland-based district” and instead
appears “to have been drawn in order to create an extreme packing of Democratic
voters that would not have naturally emerged from drawing a more compact
Cleveland-based district.

I made both the Lorrain and Summit districts much more compact and removed the tentacles.  District 13 is Biden+9 while district 5 is Trump+1.2,  one Democratic Leaning and one competitive.  The Cleveland district is still VRA compliant.



Not sure if this is exactly what the court is asking for, but it's something along those lines most likely.

3. Two Columbus metro districts that include all of Delaware and Franklin counties (...and a part of Fairfield?!?)

This one is kinda weird, and also put into a different section than those found about Summit, Cuyahoga, and Hamilton counties, but they do go over it in quite detail so it's worth mentioning.

The court wants two Democratic districts in the Columbus metro, one should include all of Delaware county and the other entirely within Franklin.  There is still roughly ~35k population required after that and the other other county mention is Fairfield of all places (east of Franklin).  Putting the 35k of Fairfield with the Franklin-exclussive district would break rules, so it has to go with the district that includes all of Delaware.  

page 24

Dr. Imai found that the enacted plan packs Franklin County
Democratic voters into a “single, heavily Democratic” district in order to create
additional Republican-leaning districts, “leaving much of the city of Columbus in a
Republican district stretching most of the way to Cincinnati.” As a result, much of
Franklin County—including parts of Columbus—belongs to a safe Republican
district.

By contrast, Dr. Imai’s 5,000 simulated plans showed that the entirety of
Franklin and Delaware Counties and a portion of Fairfield County would be
expected to belong to a Democratic-leaning district.

Dr. Imai concluded that by confining Democratic voters to a single district, the enacted plan packs voters in a way that yields an additional seat for Republicans as compared to Dr. Imai’s
simulated plans

Alternative plans, Dr. Rodden notes, split Franklin County with a line that runs
from east to west to create a compact southern district and a relatively compact
northern district that crosses over into Delaware County, which would keep
Columbus’s northern suburbs together.

Districts 3 and 15 are also “less geographically
compact” than nearly every simulated plan’s districts containing the most and
second most Columbus residents—which is not a result “one could reasonably
expect from a districting process that follows the districting requirements of the
Ohio Constitution.”

For these reasons, we conclude that the enacted plan divided
Franklin County into noncompact districts to confer a partisan advantage on the
party drawing the plan.

So, it's really weird to put Fairfield in as the remainder, but it works I suppose.  Here it is



So in the end - One district entirely within Hamilton, doesn't take out Forest Park or surrounding areas, three compact Cleveland seats, and two Democratic Leaning Columbus metro seats.  

Toledo and Dayton aren't mentioned anywhere, so those might be made more Republican or be left alone.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/f9281b92-8deb-4134-a99c-bd569803461b

[Gass3268]

Good work! Kinda annoying they want Fairfield when Franklin + Delware + Morrow is like exactly 2 districts.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

[snip]

Thank you for your hard work!

[Padfoot]

Good work! Kinda annoying they want Fairfield when Franklin + Delware + Morrow is like exactly 2 districts.

I think this is an instance where COI > minimizing county splits.  Even though Morrow is technically within the Columbus MSA it isn't really part of the Columbus core.  Fairfield actually has some parts of Columbus proper within it as well as several bordering suburban cities.

However, I do think it is odd to insist on including a part of Fairfield specifically.  There are portions of Licking and Union that would make much more sense from a compactness point of view.

[Gass3268]

Looks like Ohio Republicans are cool with letting the court draw the maps.

https://twitter.com/DrewSav/status/1484255048788062214?s=20

[lfromnj]

Its just ugly because you need to gerrymander to get rid of a 4D 3 R state house split in Hamilton.  That draws its self naturally. 3 Cinci seats + 1 Dem in the north. 2 R seats in the west along with a Biden Eastern seat that still voted for Renacci in 2018 so I consider it an R seat. They made it 5D 2 R but didn't sacrifice the senate seat because Hamilton naturally lends itself it a Western and North seat instead of a Eastern and North seat. Making a Eastern and Northern seat forces a stupid seat regarding the West instead of just placing the Eastern 1/7 of Hamilton with Warren/Clermont.

[Virginiá]

In a situation like this where a decent number of Republican lawmakers might lose their seats due to a redraw, there probably isn't a lot of incentive for the legislature to try and draw a map the court would accept anyway. Too many tough decisions and too much animosity from the people who inevitably lose out.

Also I'm not 100% on how it works when the court redraws - is it a 4 year map or a 10 year map? If it's 4 years, then it would make sense as the GOP wouldn't have any incentive to produce an acceptable map as Democrats would probably vote for it and lock it in for the whole decade. Instead, 4 years later, Republicans can just gerrymander again when/if the Ohio Supreme Court becomes more friendly to their interests.

[GALeftist]

In a situation like this where a decent number of Republican lawmakers might lose their seats due to a redraw, there probably isn't a lot of incentive for the legislature to try and draw a map the court would accept anyway. Too many tough decisions and too much animosity from the people who inevitably lose out.

Also I'm not 100% on how it works when the court redraws - is it a 4 year map or a 10 year map? If it's 4 years, then it would make sense as the GOP wouldn't have any incentive to produce an acceptable map as Democrats would probably vote for it and lock it in for the whole decade. Instead, 4 years later, Republicans can just gerrymander again when/if the Ohio Supreme Court becomes more friendly to their interests.

I don't think the SCOH can redraw, at least for state legislative maps. Article XI Section 9(D)(1) of the Ohio Constitution states that "No court shall order, in any circumstance, the implementation or enforcement of any general assembly district plan that has not been approved by the commission in the manner prescribed by this article." I think the danger is that if the commission just keeps spamming obviously biased maps they could be held in contempt but I don't really know how the lack of maps would be resolved in that case. I hope it doesn't come to pass, though.

I've heard many people say that the OHSC also cannot redraw congressional seats itself. Why is this? I don't see any explicit prohibition against it in Article XIX like there is in Article XI.

[sting in the rafters]

https://davesredistricting.org/join/bbd8f20d-dc33-476b-8845-0d5a51ca89ff

Ref. Lorain does anyone know what pushback would be from OH-SC on splitting to give Kaptur a decent looking replacement to the snake by the lake and an R-sink? The same R-sink allows for an Akron-based district that actually swung (though not trend) D in 2020 because of East Cleveland suburbs+KSU's growing influence.

It is possible to create a Akron/Youngstown/Canton that allows for 7 Biden districts though A) holding 6 seats in an R-wave is more realistic, B) The Dayton district will be within reach soon enough, and C) The labor organization just isn't there to be competitive in Mahoning Valley/Ashtabula.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

In a situation like this where a decent number of Republican lawmakers might lose their seats due to a redraw, there probably isn't a lot of incentive for the legislature to try and draw a map the court would accept anyway. Too many tough decisions and too much animosity from the people who inevitably lose out.

Also I'm not 100% on how it works when the court redraws - is it a 4 year map or a 10 year map? If it's 4 years, then it would make sense as the GOP wouldn't have any incentive to produce an acceptable map as Democrats would probably vote for it and lock it in for the whole decade. Instead, 4 years later, Republicans can just gerrymander again when/if the Ohio Supreme Court becomes more friendly to their interests.

I don't think the SCOH can redraw, at least for state legislative maps. Article XI Section 9(D)(1) of the Ohio Constitution states that "No court shall order, in any circumstance, the implementation or enforcement of any general assembly district plan that has not been approved by the commission in the manner prescribed by this article." I think the danger is that if the commission just keeps spamming obviously biased maps they could be held in contempt but I don't really know how the lack of maps would be resolved in that case. I hope it doesn't come to pass, though.

I've heard many people say that the OHSC also cannot redraw congressional seats itself. Why is this? I don't see any explicit prohibition against it in Article XIX like there is in Article XI.

OHSC can certainly redraw the congressional maps, if nothing else

[lfromnj]

https://redistricting.ohio.gov/meetings

Seems like the GOP is just drawing a bunch of Tilt D Trump seats.

https://redistricting.ohio.gov/assets/organizations/redistricting-commission/cuyahoga-summit-and-geauga-counties.pdf

all 15 seats in the Cleveland area are D leaning but 6 of them are literally 50 to 51% in the composite.



Also a classic case of Fair maps from Democrats.

[GALeftist]

Seems like the GOP is playing with fire here, O'Connor indicated she wants an actual fair map and I can see the Rs getting held in contempt if they keep trying to rules lawyer after an extremely explicit court order

[lfromnj]

In defense Summit County Ohio naturally lends itself to that. After drawing a black influence seat in Akron the rest of the county is 50/50.

 

This seems to be the natural layout of Summit. One Black seat in Akron. One white Akron seat + Cuyahoga falls which seems to be the suburb that sorta juts into Akron. After that one working class southern seat that is R for Trump and composite heavily and one more upscale middle-northern seat that voted for Biden but is R on the composite. Finally the northern Twinsburg area strip which definetely seems more related to Cleveland anyway. It seems the GOP just made all 3 seats into tossups more or less.

It strictly follows proportionality and after that it makes 2 dem seats 1 tossup and 1 r seat into 1 d seats and 3 tossups. It isn't a case of making tossups from dem seats. Its just making 3 tossups where each party has to give up their safe seat. Its different from say Dayton where there would be one Likely D and one Safe R but they still keep the Safe R while making the Likely D a tossup.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/jbalmert/status/1484893646411423751?s=20


Dems maps btw.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/jbalmert/status/1484940794599546890?s=20

As a follow-up, the GOP maps. These aren't going to fly with the court - a lot of obtuse areas remain the same from the previous version - so there's going likely to be new developments next week.

[Tekken_Guy]

Why is Dublin still attached to Union County?

[lfromnj]

Why is Dublin still attached to Union County?

Some county has to be attached to get to 4 senate districts worth of pop. Infact 2 really have to be attached for closer to equal pop.

[Tekken_Guy]

Why is Dublin still attached to Union County?

Some county has to be attached to get to 4 senate districts worth of pop. Infact 2 really have to be attached for closer to equal pop.

Why did they not make that configuration with the WWC south Franklin county and Pickaway? That would have made way more sense.