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DAYTON, OH - A competitive Senate race in Ohio has resulted in voters being flooded with ads about national issues, but a lesser known state ballot measure to amend the state constitution could, according to its critics, fundamentally change the makeup of elections for the worse for years to come.
On Tuesday, Ohio voters will vote "yes" or "no" on a measure "to create an appointed redistricting commission not elected by or subject to removal by the voters of the state."
The ballot question states that it would, among other things, "repeal constitutional protections against gerrymandering approved by nearly three quarters of Ohio electors participating in the statewide elections of 2015 and 2018, and eliminate the longstanding ability of Ohio citizens to hold their representatives accountable for establishing fair state legislative and congressional districts."
Ohioans voted overwhelmingly in 2015 to create the commission and have it draw State House districts. During that bipartisan campaign, which was called Fair Districts for Ohio, they were promised the new system would "protect against gerrymandering." In 2018, voters gave the commission an additional role in a new system set up to draw congressional districts.
Citizens Not Politicians (CNP) argues the existing system has failed. The group is calling for replacing the current regime with an independent body made up of average citizens. Current and former politicians, party officials and lobbyists would be ineligible. The 15-member Ohio Citizens Redistricting Commission would include Republicans, Democrats and independents and represent a mix of the state’s geographic and demographic traits.
CNP sued the Ohio Ballot Board and Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose over the wording of the ballot measure, and small tweaks were made. However, the court ruled the phrase "required to gerrymander" was accurate and upheld the majority of the wording.
While CNP argues that this measure puts citizens in control of district mapping, opponents warn that the measure is a partisan power grab funded by progressive groups, including dark money.
"Issue 1 doesn't empower citizens, it does the exact opposite," Honest Elections Project Executive Director Jason Snead told Fox News Digital. "It creates a new class of politicians who are wholly unaccountable to the people of Ohio. It's nothing more than a liberal power grab designed to send more progressive politicians to Washington and Columbus."
Americans for Public Trust Executive Director Caitlin Sutherland has raised concerns about who is funding the "yes" side of the argument.
"Liberal operatives have openly discussed their strategy to weaponize ballot issues in competitive states not only to bypass the legislatures, but also boost their preferred progressive candidates," Sutherland said. "That’s the exact playbook they’re using in Ohio with Issue 1. The Arabella-managed Sixteen Thirty Fund is the number one donor to the campaign to pass Issue 1, which would force gerrymandering in the state and decimate the voice of Ohioans."
Issue 1 Ohio Works has argued that a "yes" vote "creates an unaccountable commission whose members are chosen out of a hat by four retired judges, an unknown private hiring firm and commission members themselves."
"Issue 1 will require Ohio’s legislative districts be gerrymandered to ensure that Republicans and Democrats can each win a set number of seats in the General Assembly and Congress," Ohio Works argued. "Ohio voters could be stuck with a representative from the opposite party on the opposite end of the state who doesn’t share their point of view. Issue 1 will allow for maps to divide any county, city or township into as many districts as necessary to achieve the set number of seats. It will also create legislative districts with strange shapes like the famous ‘snake on the lake’ district that has defined Ohio gerrymandering for years."
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Fox News Digital spoke to LaRose about the ballot measure on Saturday and asked what his message would be to voters who are still undecided or perhaps confused by the barrage of ads from both sides.
"Here's the easiest way to describe it," LaRose said. "Issue 1 would replace the current redistricting process where people that you can fire, that are accountable to you, right? Elected officials are in charge of drawing district lines and are required to draw those in a balanced, bipartisan way. That's what the Ohio Constitution was amended to do ten years ago when over 70% of Ohioans voted for that."
"Now, if Issue 1 passes, all of those rules that protect against gerrymandering go away. A 15 member panel will be created. It's supposed to be five Democrats, five Republicans and five Independents. But they're appointed through this really complex process. I call it a Rube Goldberg device, like one of those drawings with the overly complicated thing. So, somehow they get these 15 people, those people then can never be fired from the redistricting commission. You're literally never allowed to talk to them, which I think is a First Amendment violation. It says right in the amendment. You only can talk to them at a public meeting. So if your kid plays soccer with one of their kids, you can't tell them how you think that the line drawing should work, which is crazy."
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LaRose explained that "they're required to sit down and draw state legislative and congressional districts to create a certain number of Democratic seats and a certain number of Republican seats," which he calls the "definition of gerrymandering."
LaRose also warned that a "yes" on Issue 1 could end up negatively affecting minority communities in inner cities.
"They will try to create an arbitrary number of Democrat seats that really don't fit, square peg, round hole kind of stuff and what they will do is crack urban populations, reduce minority representation," LaRose said. "This is what happened in Detroit when Michigan passed something just like this. They'll reduce minority representation, cracking urban populations and then drawing them, gerrymandering them all the way out into the suburbs."
"Yes on Issue 1" has massively outspent opponents of the measure and the majority of the money from the "yes" side has come from outside the state, Ohio Capital Journal reported.
Ohio GOP Lieutenant Gov. Jon Husted told Fox News Digital that Issue 1 is the "biggest power grab" the state has seen in "many years" funded by "Democrats outside of Ohio."
"A 17-page amendment that gives them unlimited spending ability, an unlimited legal defense fund, that will allow them to literally gerrymander more Democrats into Congress," Husted said.
Ohio businessman Bernie Moreno, running for Senate in Ohio, told Fox News Digital the debate on the ballot measure is "simple" and Ohioans should vote "no."
"Look, we live in a constitutional Republic," Moreno said. "If you don't like your elected leaders, you get to vote them out. We don't want to have legislation through constitutional amendment, especially one funded by an out-of state billionaire. The right vote is no."
CNP and other groups supporting Issue 1 have made the case that a "yes" vote "creates accountability where it currently does not exist."
"What could be more unaccountable than the current system in which politicians ignore seven Ohio Supreme Court rulings to make Ohio one of the 10 most gerrymandered states in the country?" the CNP website states.
"The politicians on the current Redistricting Commission are not accountable to the voters: One of the Republican members got his seat on the Senate after running with no opposition in a gerrymandered district, and one of the Democratic members is running unopposed for reelection this November after she redrew her district to make it even more gerrymandered. That’s not accountability."
CNP says that the new system will ensure that "neither party, nor the independents alone, can force a map through without bipartisan consensus."
CNP has also made the case that the "ballot language is false and misleading and has no impact on what the constitutional amendment itself actually says and does," which LaRose denied to Fox News Digital.
"The yes people don't like it, but the ballot language is truthful," LaRose told Fox News Digital. "When you get to your voting booth, and you read that and if you think that that's a good idea, then you're a rare bird."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
