<\/p>\n
COLUMBUS, Ohio\u2014Gov. Mike DeWine has been criticized for retreating on a promise last year to push for Ohio to adopt a redistricting reform plan based on the state of Iowa\u2019s system. <\/p>\n
But a top Democratic lawmaker now says she doesn\u2019t think Ohio should replace its current redistricting system with Iowa\u2019s process, even if such a change was a realistic possibility. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur process looks similar to Iowa already, but we\u2019re a different state,\u201d said Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio, a Lakewood Democrat, told reporters Wednesday. \u201cWe\u2019re bigger. We\u2019re not totally focused on agriculture like they are in Iowa. I mean, they\u2019re very small.\u201d <\/p>\n
In July 2024, DeWine said<\/a> that if Ohio voters rejected a different redistricting reform plan on the November ballot, he would \u201cdo everything\u201d he could to get Ohio to adopt Iowa\u2019s redistricting system. <\/p>\n Since 1980, Iowa\u2019s legislative and congressional maps have been drawn by the state legislature\u2019s nonpartisan research agency, then voted on by the Iowa legislature. If no plan passes, the Iowa Supreme Court draws new maps. <\/p>\n \u201cThe Iowa plan is simple, it is clear, and it takes politics out of the map-drawing process forever,\u201d the governor said at the time. But even though voters soundly rejected the redistricting ballot issue, DeWine is now just expressing a vague hope<\/u> that Ohio lawmakers will someday take a look at the idea \u2013 a move that, so far, the legislature has not done. <\/p>\n Antonio favored last year\u2019s unsuccessful ballot measure, Issue 1, which would have created an independent redistricting commission picked by a panel of retired judges. <\/p>\n She\u2019s also criticized Republicans for not putting forward a congressional redistricting plan so far this fall, suggesting that the GOP is stalling until November, when state redistricting rules no longer require bipartisan support for a new map to pass. <\/p>\n However, Antonio defended Ohio\u2019s current redistricting rules, under which new legislative maps are drawn by the seven-member Ohio Redistricting Commission and congressional redistricting is passed via a three-phase process that alternates between the legislature and the redistricting commission. <\/p>\n \u201cI think the process that we have from the people, if it was followed, should work,\u201d Antonio said. <\/p>\n Besides the population difference between Ohio (11.8 million people) and Iowa (3.2 million people), Antonio said that, unlike Ohio, Iowa lawmakers are motivated to hammer out bipartisan redistricting maps by the threat of the state Supreme Court drawing new districts. <\/p>\n \u201cAs much as I appreciate the governor looking other places for other processes that might work, ultimately, I don\u2019t think that\u2019ll work in Ohio, because we don\u2019t have that in our culture to require us to sit at the table and stay there,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n When Ohio House Minority Leader Dani Isaacsohn, a Cincinnati Democrat, was asked what he thought about moving to an Iowa-style redistricting system, he didn\u2019t directly answer. <\/p>\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter which state you look at for a model,\u201d he said. \u201cThe core principle ultimately needs to be that politicians should not be the ones choosing their own voters.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/div>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" COLUMBUS, Ohio\u2014Gov. Mike DeWine has been criticized for retreating on a promise last year to push for Ohio to adopt a redistricting reform plan based on the state of Iowa\u2019s system. But a top Democratic lawmaker now says she doesn\u2019t think Ohio should replace its current redistricting system with Iowa\u2019s process, even if such a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4835,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[1350,1349,1351,1352,1353,503,865,1354,282],"class_list":{"0":"post-4834","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-style","8":"tag-breaks","9":"tag-democrat","10":"tag-dewine","11":"tag-idea","12":"tag-iowastyle","13":"tag-ohio","14":"tag-plan","15":"tag-redistricting","16":"tag-top"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}