Documents show Boehner involved in redistricting

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

Public documents released Monday by voter advocates show representatives of U.S. House Speaker John Boehner and operatives at the National Republican Congressional Committee were central in drawing the state’s disputed congressional map.

Documents obtained through a public-records request by the nonpartisan Ohio Campaign for Accountable Redistricting show Tom Whatman, executive director of a congressional campaign effort called Team Boehner, joined mapmaking consultants and the NRCC in crafting the lines — at times with legislative leaders who were supposed to be in charge playing a minor role.

Jim Slagle, a coalition representative who presented the findings to reporters, said the records confirmed that the map, which favors Republican districts 12-4, was gerrymandered.

He said he saw no evidence in emails that the GOP was concerned about good-government mapmaking principles that were being promoted by the coalition, such as keeping counties whole or keeping like voters together.

“We have politicians choosing their voters instead of the other way around,” he said.

A Team Boehner political spokesman, Cory Fritz, defended Boehner’s role in the process, noting he wasn’t the only one Ohio House Speaker William Batchelder, a Republican, heard from.

“Speaker Batchelder was clear at the outset of this process that he was interested in Speaker Boehner’s input — as well as the input of a number of other key stakeholders, Democrat and Republican,” Fritz said. “It shouldn’t come as a surprise now to see our staff was involved in an advisory role.”

Emails showed that as the unveiling of the Republicans’ congressional map neared, Whatman was averaging a request a day, including a suggested boundary change affecting the Canton-based Timken Co., led by a prolific Republican political donor.

“Guys: really, really sorry to ask but can we do a small carve out down 77 in Canton and put Timken in the 16th [district],” Whatman wrote to Republican mapmaking consultant Ray DiRossi and others copied in a Sept. 12 email, the night before the redistricting map was unveiled. After the request was approved, Whatman replies, “Thanks guys. Very important to someone important to us all.”

The extension, which involved an area where Slagle said there are no voters, keeps Timken’s headquarters and manufacturing plant in Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci’s district. Timken executives and board members have contributed more than $120,000 to Renacci in the last two years.

DiRossi and a second consultant, GOP attorney Heather Mann, were paid $105,000 each through their private firms for the work they did amid stints on the House payroll. Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern blasted the arrangement as secretive and said the party is considering further steps regarding the day’s revelations.

The correspondence released includes an email pledge by GOP Senate President Tom Niehaus to deliver “a map that Speaker Boehner fully supports.”

It also shows Batchelder’s chief of staff, Troy Judy, providing DiRossi with a list of House districts that traditionally have been expensive for Republicans to win. DiRossi replies that the new map should save the party millions.

The map was approved in September, and the Ohio Democratic Party is pursuing a 2012 ballot challenge, claiming the lines disadvantage their party despite there being more registered Democrats than Republicans in the state. The party has until Christmas to submit the necessary signatures.

Most Democrats fought the map’s passage in the Legislature. Analysis by the redistricting coalition found 12 of 16 congressional districts on the new map favor Republicans, the other four, Democrats.

The map is redrawn every 10 years to reflect population shifts. Ohio is losing two seats in Congress because of slow population growth.

The redistricting coalition, made up of 25 Ohio groups, used the documents to assemble their report released Monday, which they dubbed “The Elephant in the Room.” It detailed the behind-the-scenes political machinations used in crafting the new map. Records included emails between the map’s designers, transcripts of public meetings and payment records.

The report claimed that Republicans in charge of drawing the map created districts “that will provide for largely predetermined elections where we will know which party will win before we even know who the candidates are.”

It said the mapmakers looked at elections where Democrats won by large percentages when judging the districts they created, “so that Republican candidates could safely win a solid majority of districts even in a heavily Democratic year.”

Emails between the people crafting the map and Whatman, executive director of Team Boehner, show Whatman weighing in on designs and making requests. Team Boehner is an organization created early this year to help congressional Republicans facing election contests in 2012 maintain their majority in the U.S. House.

The coalition said that the maps were drawn in secret despite lawmakers’ promises of an open, transparent process.

Receipts and emails show $9,600 in taxpayer money was used to rent a Columbus hotel room for 91 days to use as a headquarters for drawing the map.

The report said that the purpose of the hotel room — referred to in emails as the “bunker” — was “to ensure that no one could gain access to the redistricting plans and to provide a place where those drawing the maps could meet with interested parties without being seen by other staff.”

Though the coalition released 176 pages of documents obtained through their records request, they say a number of public officials — including Batchelder, Boehner and House Communications Director Mike Dittoe — have yet to respond. They also say that “significant records have been withheld on the basis of attorney- client privilege.”