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Anti-SB 5 group plays role in initiative to revamp redistricting
YOUNGSTOWN
A coalition of good-government groups, looking to get enough signatures to place a congressional and state legislative redistricting overhaul issue on the November ballot, is working with the organization that led the charge to defeat Senate Bill 5.
Voters First, the group seeking to change how redistricting is done, needs 385,245 valid signatures — a number equal to 10 percent of those who voted in the 2010 gubernatorial election — on petitions by July 4 to get the proposal on the November ballot.
“It’s going to be tough” to get the needed signatures, said Dennis Willard, a spokesman for We Are Ohio, the main group behind the defeat in November 2011 of SB5, a bill that would have restricted some collective-bargaining rights for state union workers. “But we’re confident we’ll be on the ballot.”
Volunteers and people who will be paid are collecting signatures, Willard said.
Members of Voters First and We Are Ohio had a Tuesday press conference outside the Lemon Grove, a downtown bar and restaurant, to announce they’re working together.
Current state law has the state Legislature approve congressional maps. A committee of the governor, auditor, secretary of state, a Republican legislator and a Democratic legislator draws lines for state House and Senate districts. Both are controlled by Republicans, and new lines for congressional and state legislative maps, redrawn to take effect with the November election, favor that political party.
The Voters First proposal would have a 12-member citizens coalition create the districts that would be geographically compact and minimize the division of counties, townships, municipalities and wards.
“This is an issue that definitely needs work,” said Ann Henkener, redistricting specialist for the League of Women Voters of Ohio, which is part of Voters First. “Districts are drawn for the party in power and the incumbents. They pick the voters rather than have the voters pick them.”