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Ohio Senate hammers out redistricting reform
By Marc Kovac
COLUMBUS
Republicans and Democrats in the state Legislature have hammered out an agreement to reform the way the state draws its legislative districts after negotiations that stretched overnight Thursday.
The Ohio Senate approved the proposed constitutional amendment on a vote of 28-1 just after 4 a.m. Friday, and the Ohio House is expected to do the same on its final voting session of the year Wednesday.
The final resolution requires bipartisan agreement on new district lines or implements an “impasse” provision restarting the process, initially after four years.
“This is the most-significant bipartisan activity that I’ve been involved in my time here in the House in the general assembly,” said Rep. Vernon Sykes, D-Akron, a primary co-sponsor of the resolution. He added later of the plan, “It will provide more bipartisanship in decision-making, more openness, more transparency and a better product for the people of this state.”
Republican Senate President Keith Faber, R-Celina, added during floor deliberations, “This is good. Vote for it.”
Faber joined Sykes, Minority Leader Joe Schiavoni of Boardman, D-33rd, during an early morning press conference Friday voicing support for the plan.
“It’s a win for the voters in the state of Ohio because we have more competitive districts now,” Schiavoni said. “When I’m going out and talking to people in the district, that’s what they want. They don’t understand how we can have a state that seems to be so evenly matched between Republicans and Democrats with Senate districts and House districts drawn the way that they are.”
Proponents of making redistricting less partisan are heralding the revamped reform effort as historic.”
Ohio’s current system of redrawing legislative district lines every 10 years places power over the process in the hands of whichever political party controls state government.