Democracy in Ohio

Ohio's Issue 1 and its Orwellian Opponents

Ohio has a rare chance to vote for democracy, and millions of Ohioans will take it: by voting yes on Issue 1, which will ban gerrymandering and generate fair electoral maps.  Gerrymandering allows politicians to choose their voters. Banning it will return the power of voting to citizens.

This ballot initiative will allow Ohioans to put an end to partisan electoral districts designed to allow those already in power to stay in power. It would create an independent commission that would generate fair electoral maps, allowing everyone's vote to count, and democratic competition to prevail.

As a historian, I have watched the progressive dismantling of democracy in my home state with a special dismay. Unfair electoral districts have a long and tawdry history in failed democracies and emerging authoritarian regimes. 

In interwar Poland, districts were engineered to favor the party of someone who had carried out a coup d'état.  In interwar Yugoslavia, during the transition to dictatorship, districts were carefully shaped to magnify the voice of the largest ethnic group, the Serbs, at the expense of everyone else.  In Britain, before the reforms of 1832, unfair districts were called "rotten boroughs" and were criticized by Thomas Paine in The Rights of Man.  The founders were very concerned to avoid that problem.

The French call gerrymandering "electoral butchery," which gets right to the point.  Americans, when given a chance, slice up districts with the best of them, then put the cleavers behind their backs and protest their innocence.  Historically, American state legislatures shape districts to create one-party rule in a state, often with racial animus.  Because states are also responsible for federal elections, state legislatures can also create grotesque districts for candidates running for the United States House of Representatives.

You might think it’s exaggeration to group Ohio in 2024 with these historical examples. But Ohio legislators have pressed forward these last few years with maps they know to be unlawful. And the precision of our gerrymandering, aided by demographic data and computer models, is actually more savage than past examples. In the current election, only about six of 116 elections to the Ohio senate and Ohio House will be competitive.

Most Ohio voters regard themselves as independents. Of the minority of Ohioans who declare party affiliation, just over half regard themselves as Republicans. And even that data has to be tempered by the record of liberal Ohio voting on statewide measures — for example, a constitutional affirmation of the right to abortion passed last year by 57-43. And yet, as a result of gerrymandering, Republicans outnumber Democrats by 2-1 in both the Ohio House and the Ohio Senate. This generates arrogance and a sense of impunity — which has been very evident on the issue of gerrymandering, where Ohio legislators have ignored the law and the courts and their own voters.

Because gerrymandering creates safe constituencies for those already in office, it denies citizens the power of the vote.  A basic practice in gerrymandering is to gather probable votes for the other party into as few districts as possible, with huge majorities for that party, and then create a majority of districts with smaller but clear majority for oneself.  This makes it very hard for voters to actually make a difference in a given election. Ohioans might agree on policy, but no laws get passed that reflect that agreement. This creates cynicism about democracy.

The real cynics, of course, are the gerrymanderers themselves.  They have cut themselves off from the basic principles of democracy: competitive elections and responsiveness to voters.  Since they have designed a system in which they no longer face competitive elections, their own loyalties hasten away from the preferences of their constituents.  Their attentions are turned instead to perfecting and, if necessary, defending the gerrymandered system itself.  The statehouse becomes a safe space for authoritarian dreams. In the state at large, officials who associate themselves with the gerrymandering party come to treat themselves as the true Ohioans or true Americans.

The decline of state democracy is all too apparent, unfortunately, all too clear in the official opposition to Issue 1, which is proto-authoritarian and deceptive in the extreme.  Gerrymandering is popular with no one except those who directly benefit.  In a transparent referendum, it would be defeated by a huge majority.  And so its defenders resort to tactics that are very familiar from the history of authoritarianism.  They make everything as opaque as can be. They abuse the law, and they lie.

I spent a good deal of last month driving through Ohio, talking to people about Issue 1 and paying attention to the yard signs.  I was surprised to make an Orwellian discovery.  The signs that are for Issue 1 say "ban gerrymandering," which is correct: that is what would happen were Issue 1 to pass.  But the signs that oppose Issue 1 also promise to "end gerrymandering."  This blatant lie is obviously meant to confuse.  If Issue 1 fails, the current system will continue, and it has generated seven straight electoral maps that the Ohio Supreme Court has had to reject as partisan.

The actions at the origins of this specific lie are dishonorable, and perhaps unconstitutional.  The Ohio Secretary of State, Frank LaRose, is responsible for providing a summary of Issue 1.  He wrote, instead, a propaganda pamphlet against the measure and placed that text on the ballot.  Ohio voters wishing to end gerrymandering are confronted, when they read his phrasing, with the efforts of a skilled politician to make them believe that the initiative means the opposite of what it does. 

The final wording was approved by an Ohio Ballot Board with a Republican majority.  At that stage, state senator Theresa Gavarone proposed using the word "gerrymandering" to refer to its opposite — to independent redistricting.  This change was approved.  This Orwellian touch would seem to violate the Ohio constitution, which forbids ballot language designed to "mislead, deceive, or defraud the voters."  However that may be, the official ballot lie was meant to deceptive, and it has already deceived voters.  In making a big lie the basis of political institutions, Ohio here becomes Orwellio.

But it need not be.  Ohio newspapers swung into action to explain the deception. I couldn't find any voter, including among Republicans, who actually likes gerrymandering.  I saw more signs for Yes than No. And all of the human campaigners in I saw were on the side of Yes on Issue 1. 

The deliberately deceptive wording on the ballot will artificially narrow the margin, no doubt: but I think Ohioans will vote yes on Issue 1.  That would be good news for everyone who likes to vote and wants to live in a democracy.

PS:  This is the voter guidance of the Ohio Capitol Journal on Issue 1.

Below is an extract from the non-partisan voter guide for Knox County, Ohio, drawn up by the student associates of the Center for the Study of American Democracy at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, some of whom kindly spoke with me on this issue.

"Issue 1 would create the Ohio Citizens Redistricting Commission (OCRC), a 15-member body made up of five citizens with a record of affiliation with the Republican Party (for example by voting in two primaries), five with a record of affiliation with the Democratic Party, and five citizens not affiliated with one of the two largest parties. The amendment would create a screening panel of four retired judges—two Republicans and two Democrats—to vet individuals applying to serve on the commission. The process for selecting the final five commission members from a larger pool of applicants has several steps, creating multiple opportunities for public comment on the qualifications of the applicants and for uncovering conflicts of interest. The proposal bans current and former elected officials or candidates, political party officials, lobbyists, and major political donors from applying to serve on the commission. Once the citizens’ commission is selected, Issue 1 requires that the commission draw impartial maps in compliance with the U.S. Constitution and federal law, including the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The language in the proposed constitutional amendment states that maps should be drawn, “To ban partisan gerrymandering and prohibit the use of redistricting plans that favor one political party and disfavor others, the statewide proportion of districts in each redistricting plan that favors each political party shall correspond closely to the statewide partisan preferences of the voters of Ohio. The commission would draw new maps before the 2025 general election."

PPS If you are concerned by gerrymandering, please consider supporting the reporting of the Ohio Capital Journal and the work of the Brennan Center for Justice.

Walking across the Central Bridge from Kentucky to Ohio, October 2024