Ohio Reapportionment Reform Proposal

[jimrtex]

A group of primarily Democratic Party and labor organizations is proposing a change in the way Ohio congressional and general assembly districts are determined.

Reform Ohio Now

Text of Proposed Amendments.

In general, the objective is to create politically competitive districts.  An independent commission is formed, but it must accept proposals from the general public.  After determining which plan is most competitive, the commission may adopt its own plan, as long as it is at least as competitive as the submitted plan.

Each plan must have as many whole congressional or house of representative districts as can be formed in a county, and no other county may be split between more than 2 districts. 

Congressional districts must be within ±1/2% of the statewide average, while house districts must be within ±5% of the statewide average.  Senate districts are formed from 3 house districts (The General Assembly has 33 senators and 99 representatives).

Competitiveness is based on the 3 closest partisan statewide races, including presidential elections, over the previous 4 even-year elections.  For each proposed district, the average support for the Democrat and Republican candidates in the 3 contests is determined, and the difference between the two is determined (measure of competition).

A competitive district has a measure of competition with an absolute value less than 5%.  An uncompetitive district has a measure of competition with an absosolute balue grater than 15%.

Balanced competitive districts are pairs of competitive districts that favor opposite parties.  Unbalanced uncompetitive districts are uncompetitive districts for which there is not another uncompetitive district where the support for the opposite party is not within 5%.

The competitive index for a plan is calculated as:

   2 x Number of balanced competitive districts
+ Number of other competitive districts
- 2 x Number of unbalanced uncompetitive districts

If two plans have the same competitive index, the favored plan is the one with fewer county fragments, then fewer municipal fragments, then fewer township fragments.

Once the best submitted plan is determined, the commission may determine an alternative plan that has a competitive index within 2 for a congressional plan or 4 for a house plan.

[TheresNoMoney]

Two other important issues included in this are campaign finance reform and election reform.

It will almost definitely pass should it be on the ballot.

[jimrtex]

Two other important issues included in this are campaign finance reform and election reform.

It will almost definitely pass should it be on the ballot.

There is no reason to bundle early voting in the corrupt Washington-style with the other change.

The redistricting scheme can be gamed, and will likely result in more counties being split.

[muon2]

I find most strange the idea that the commission can be isolated from partisan influence. People talk to other people, and the idea thta judges don't talk to elected officials seems strange. It might be better to allow communication (which will probably happen anyway), and make it clear to the public what the partisan leanings of the commissioners might be.

[jimrtex]

I find most strange the idea that the commission can be isolated from partisan influence. People talk to other people, and the idea thta judges don't talk to elected officials seems strange. It might be better to allow communication (which will probably happen anyway), and make it clear to the public what the partisan leanings of the commissioners might be.

I don't think the intent is to isolate it from partisan influence, as much as attempting to keep it out of the hands of one party or another, and also to remove it from the control of the general assembly.  This is especially the case for districting of the general assembly where each member has their own interest to look after.

The 2 longest serving justices of the district courts of appeals of opposite parties would appoint the first two members of the redistricting commission from their own party.  These two appointees would together then choose the other three members, including one from each party and one non-affiliated person.  There are a lot of restrictions on who can be members of the commission, so I'd be concerned that you could get an unbalanced commission with some highly partisan members and some more technically oriented who happen to have a party affiliation.

The scheme is presented as primarily a matter of the commission determining which independently submitted plan is the most competitive.  I think that the competitive index can be gamed, and it may actually encourage splitting of counties and townships.   It is not clear whether the intent is for the commission to create their own plan or not (they are permitted to do so, but only required to do so if their are no independent submissions).

[muon2]

I find most strange the idea that the commission can be isolated from partisan influence. People talk to other people, and the idea thta judges don't talk to elected officials seems strange. It might be better to allow communication (which will probably happen anyway), and make it clear to the public what the partisan leanings of the commissioners might be.

I don't think the intent is to isolate it from partisan influence, as much as attempting to keep it out of the hands of one party or another, and also to remove it from the control of the general assembly.  This is especially the case for districting of the general assembly where each member has their own interest to look after.

The 2 longest serving justices of the district courts of appeals of opposite parties would appoint the first two members of the redistricting commission from their own party.  These two appointees would together then choose the other three members, including one from each party and one non-affiliated person.  There are a lot of restrictions on who can be members of the commission, so I'd be concerned that you could get an unbalanced commission with some highly partisan members and some more technically oriented who happen to have a party affiliation.

The scheme is presented as primarily a matter of the commission determining which independently submitted plan is the most competitive.  I think that the competitive index can be gamed, and it may actually encourage splitting of counties and townships.   It is not clear whether the intent is for the commission to create their own plan or not (they are permitted to do so, but only required to do so if their are no independent submissions).

I agree that this looks like it can be gamed. The index is given precedence over any geographical factors like county and township integrity. If thta's the case, one will get bizarre gerrymandered districts created in the name of competitiveness.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

It'll pass, a republican former state supreme court chief justice as well as a former close aide of Taft who resigned over discust at the Noe scandal are supporting it.

[jimrtex]

I agree that this looks like it can be gamed. The index is given precedence over any geographical factors like county and township integrity. If thta's the case, one will get bizarre gerrymandered districts created in the name of competitiveness.

I was trying to find out Ohio currently does redistricting and found this See page 17 and Ohio Constitution - section on redistricting.   where territorial integrity is given precedence.  If counties can not be kept whole, then only one county may be split between districts, preferably avoiding township splits.

The new proposal appears to attempt to maintain the concept, but pushes it below competitiveness in priority.   For the house of representatives, the new proposal retains the concept of requiring as many whole districts as possible within larger counties (more than 2/3 of current districts are so situated), so this limits some mischief, but their may still be an incentive to have stringlike districts connecting inner cities and suburbs.

For congressional districts, only Cuyahoga, Franklin, and Hamilton counties have enough population to require one wholly contained district.

[muon2]

It seemed like a useful exercise to apply the proposed competitiveness index to the map I created with purerly geographic rules.

Note that my rules permit counties to be split more than two ways in order to minimize counties that are split, and minimize the total number of fractional counties. This is not permitted under Ohio law and happens once in Stark county. This would be easy to fix, and would have no substantial change on the results.

I've completed Ohio using the usual rules.



Only one city, Columbus, is larger than the population of a district. Columbus also has a number of unincorporated pockets inside, and I'm only guessing that I can make a district entirely within the City limits, and provide the necessary links between the pockets and the adjacent districts. With that assumption, rules P-1,2,3 are all zero.

OH has a number of counties with large urban centers, and that forces some county splits.  I split  Montgomery and Stark that were less than one district size, and split  Stark into three pieces to avoid
splitting a third small county.  Rule P-4 is two.

All three large counties had a district wholly within them, and Cuyahoga has two wholly within. Rule P-5 is zero. All three also only have two partial districts. Rule P-6  is 11 partial districts, and rule P-7 is three maximum in any county.

I only used data from the 2004 Persidential election, rather than the six individual races called for by the proposal. Nonetheless it gives some idea. I've also tries to number my districts in a similar fashion to the current CDs.

CD 1 (Cincinnati) Dem + 6.3%
CD 2 (Cinci East) Rep + 38.3% Uncompetive
CD 3 (Middletown) Rep +30.2% Uncompetitive
CD 4 (Mansfield) Rep +23.9% Uncompetitive
CD 5 (Bowling Green) Rep +32.2% Uncompetitive
CD 6 (Canton) Dem +1.7% COMPETITIVE
CD 7 (Springfield) Rep +18.4% Uncompetitive
CD 8 (Dayton) Rep +5.2%
CD 9 (Toledo) Dem +10.0%
CD 10 (Parma) Dem +16.5% Uncompetitive
CD 11 (Cleveland) Dem +62.7% Uncompetitive
CD 12 (Newark) Rep +14.7%
CD 13 (Sandusky) Rep +0.1% COMPETITIVE
CD 14 (Euclid - Warren) Dem +11.9%
CD 15 (Columbus) Dem +25.3% Uncompetitive
CD 16 (Akron) Dem +13.2%
CD 17 (Youngstown) Dem +8.2%
CD 18 (Portsmouth) Rep +9.2%

There are two balanced competitive districts: 6 and 13. They add 4 points. There are two uncompetitive Dem districts that can be balanced against uncompetitive Rep districts so that they neither add nor subtract. That leaves four uncompetitive districts: 2, 3, 5 and 11 that add -8 points. The total measure of competitiveness is -4 points.

Some observations. It would take extreme measures to ever pair the Cleveland district with anything. There are too many Dems in a small area. It's also hard to do much about some of the solid Rep districts. On the other hand the proposal would favor carving up Cincinnati and Columbus to reduce the Rep strength surrounding them, this coming at the expense of intact municipalities as is currently favored.

Most notable and of concern is that there would be a strong inclination to make some Dem districts intentionally uncompetitive. For instance taking districts 14 and 16 and adding Dems to make them over 15% allows them to be used to cancel some uncompetitive Rep districts. This seems to run contrary to the purpose of competitive ness. To make sense an unbalanced district should be balanced by any district within 5%, even if that district is not uncompetitive.

[A18]

What are the chances of this passing?

[jimrtex]

It seemed like a useful exercise to apply the proposed competitiveness index to the map I created with purerly geographic rules.

Note that my rules permit counties to be split more than two ways in order to minimize counties that are split, and minimize the total number of fractional counties. This is not permitted under Ohio law and happens once in Stark county. This would be easy to fix, and would have no substantial change on the results.

I've completed Ohio using the usual rules.



Only one city, Columbus, is larger than the population of a district. Columbus also has a number of unincorporated pockets inside, and I'm only guessing that I can make a district entirely within the City limits, and provide the necessary links between the pockets and the adjacent districts. With that assumption, rules P-1,2,3 are all zero.

OH has a number of counties with large urban centers, and that forces some county splits.  I split  Montgomery and Stark that were less than one district size, and split  Stark into three pieces to avoid
splitting a third small county.  Rule P-4 is two.

All three large counties had a district wholly within them, and Cuyahoga has two wholly within. Rule P-5 is zero. All three also only have two partial districts. Rule P-6  is 11 partial districts, and rule P-7 is three maximum in any county.

I only used data from the 2004 Persidential election, rather than the six individual races called for by the proposal. Nonetheless it gives some idea. I've also tries to number my districts in a similar fashion to the current CDs.

The proposal uses the 3 closest races over the previous 8 years (4 elections).  The Ohio Secretary of State has the results from the previous 3 elections: 2 presidential elections, 2 senatorial elections, and the state executive elections in 2002.  The 2 presidential elections have been closest; the senate elections weren't close at all; the gubernatorial election was not close, so the 3rd closest was a down ticket race won by about 57-43.  Republicans could benefit by losing a minor executive race because it would make the districts appear to be more competitive.

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The current CD-plan, which has a 12:6 Republican majority, has a competitive index of -8.  It has 4 competitive districts, but they were all carried by Bush, including one that is represented by a Democrat (Strickland).  It has 8 uncompetitive districts, but only one balanced pair.  Surprisingly for a GOP-favoring plan, this is because the 4 Republican seats are more one-sided than 3 of the Democrat seats (as in your plan, the Cleveland district is overwhelmingly Democrat).

By making the uncompetive GOP seats slightly more balanced, and the uncompetitive Democrat seats even more so I can balance 3 pairs.  I then can either force a 5th Democrat seat into the uncompetive zone, or bring one of the 4 GOP seats to just under 15%.

I can tip a couple of the the competitive seats to the Democrats favor, giving me 2 balanced competitive pairs, and make a currently 5.5% GOP seat "competitive".  This then gives a competitive index of +7, without really changing the competitive balance.  Two of the GOP representatives (Chabot and LaTourette) were elected in 2000 when their districts at the time were carried by Gore.

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There may be a ladder effect in any case, where the uncompetitive districts for one party are more uncompetitive than those of the other party.  For example under the current CD plan, the districts are:

D 63.4%
R 30.8%-D 25.6%  0.2% (shift to balance)
R 29.3%-D 16.6%  7.7%
R 27.7%-D 16.6%  6.7%
R 22.4%-D 10.9%  6.5% (including 4.1% Democrat)
R 14.7% (no change)
R 14.7% (no change)

It would be interesting whether a computer could find a plan with an index of 31 (8 balanced competitive pairs, one not-balanced competitive district and Cleveland).

Lets say find If I could get a Cuyahoga suburban district that was 4.99% Democrat.  It ought to be possible to get your NE district within 5%.  Split Summit county, and run a pair of districts towards the southwest.  Rearrange the Canton and Youngstown districts, and place the Steubenville-Wheeling in a district stretching to the west.  The Sandusky and Toledo districts can be paired.  Make the Franklin and Hamilton county seats 4.99% Republican, which frees up Democrats for balancing with the more rural areas.  I'm ending up with too many Republicans in the west. 

So maybe try for one intermediate 14.9% Republican district, reducing the score to 30.   Or 7 balanced competitive pairs, one other competitive district, a pair of balanced uncompetitive districts, and Cleveland, for a score of 27.  That would be pretty hard to beat with any reasonable plan.