Ohio leaders say they want more competitive districts

 By Marty Schladen

Pictured is Ohio's congressional delegation as it has looked after the 2012, '14, '16, '18 and '20 elections.

Gov. Mike DeWine and Lt. Gov. Jon Husted on Tuesday said they hope a new system of drawing congressional and state legislative districts will result in more competitive elections. But, they cautioned, the task will be far from simple.

Ohio has among the worst partisan gerrymandering, according to multiple analyses. 

Districts are typically redrawn once every 10 years to reflect population changes when new census data become available. Until now, the party in control of the Statehouse has commanded the process and, using modern technology, that party has been able to greatly advantage itself.

A 2019 analysis by the Associated Press determined that in the U.S. House, Ohio Republicans got 52% of the vote but held 75% of the seats. They also held supermajorities in the state House and Senate that exceeded the portion of votes they received at the polls, the analysis found.

A separate 2013 analysis found that Ohio Democrats were the second-most underrepresented in the U.S. House and that Republicans were overrepresented by 18 seats nationwide. The imbalance was a consequence of the fact that the GOP wiped out Democrats in statehouse races in 2010 and had control of the last redistricting process in most states.

The problems created by such a partisan skew extend beyond unbalanced party representation. It also fuels polarization and extremism.

“We’ve all read the same studies about how many of the 435 congressional districts in the country aren’t really competitive and for many of them, the greatest… perceived threat to the incumbent is a primary,” DeWine said.

Voter turnout in party primaries tends to be much lower than in general elections and is dominated by the most ardent partisans — a dynamic that can result in winning candidates with fringe views that would make them sure losers in a competitive general election.

Think Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who has a record of expressing racist views, denying the reality of school shootings and whose speculations that California wildfires might have nefarious origins resulted in the mocking hashtag #JewishSpaceLasers.

He’s a member of her party, but comments by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Monday might indicate that even when they add to GOP numbers, highly gerrymandered districts are damaging to his party. He didn’t mention Greene by name, but his reference was clear when he said many of the “loony lies” expressed by her were “a cancer for the Republican Party.”

Gov. Mike DeWine and U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan.

Closer to home, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, endorsed Greene in her bid last year to win a crowded Republican Primary so she could run unopposed in the General Election. 

Jordan himself has espoused conspiracy theories — including speaking at one of President Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rallies on Nov. 5. 

Lies by fringe politicians about a stolen election pose an even more direct threat to American democracy. They fueled a Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that killed five and delayed certification of the presidential election.

One of Trump’s closest allies, Jordan was reelected to his District 4 seat with nearly 70% of the vote.

There was widespread speculation that Jordan might seek the GOP nomination to fill the U.S. Senate seat held by Rob Portman, a Republican who is stepping down in 2022. Jordan later announced that he would not seek the seat.

His office didn’t respond Tuesday when asked if the congressman had calculated that he couldn’t win outside of his gerrymandered district.

DeWine wasn’t asked about Jordan, but of the scarcity of competitive congressional races he said, “Truly, it is a national problem.” 

To address the issue, Ohio voters in 2018 overwhelmingly approved a system that would require bipartisan support for 10-year congressional maps. If that fails, four-year districts could be drawn with a party-line vote.

Husted, the lieutenant governor, said the new system has multiple goals, some of which may be mutually complicating.

In Ohio and elsewhere, the crazy shape of districts such as Jordan’s have been widely criticized. His zigs and zags and goes from just west of Columbus almost to the Indiana line, north almost to Toledo and east almost to Cleveland. 

Techniques known as “cracking and packing” have been used to draw districts that maximize partisan numbers. But they often result in maps that don’t make much sense when it comes to representing constituent interests.

The new system is “designed to hit the goals of making the districts more compact, less gerrymandered, keeping communities of interest together,” Husted said. “We think those are positive enhancements to the system and it will ultimately lead to representation that is more consistent among those communities.”

But doing that while also drawing competitive districts has become more difficult as politics have become more polarized — especially along geographic lines, DeWine said.

“The counties that were Republican 10 years ago may be much more Republican today,” he said. “In other words, the margins have gone way up and we’ve seen the same thing with Democrat counties.”

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This story is provided by Ohio Capital Journal, a part of States Newsroom, a national 501 (c)(3) nonprofit. See the original story here.

Turner makes impressive first step on long road to statewide office

The rising star that is Nina Turner’s political career entered a new orbit this morning when the state senator from Cleveland’s eastside stood before an enthusiastic crowd of 200 supporters and officially made the long- expected announcement that she was indeed running for Secretary of State in the 2014 election.

Asserting that “Ohio needs to be the gold standard for elections,” Turner said her opponent, incumbent Secretary of State Jon Husted, was the nation’s best-known Secretary of State because of his partisan efforts to suppress the votes of Ohio citizens over the past two years.

Turner said that “everybody should have fair and equal access to the ballot” and that she would “rumble for righteousness” to produce that status for Ohio voters. By way of contrast, she denounced Husted as the “Secretary of Suppression”.

An impressive collection of elected officials and Democratic Party leaders joined Turner on stage for her announcement, including Congresswoman Marcia Fudge, Cleveland mayor Frank Jackson, State Representative Nickie J. Antonio, D-13, county party chair Stuart Garson, and Chris Redfern, who chairs the Ohio Democratic Party and also serves in the Ohio House. All but Redfern spoke, in perhaps tacit acknowledgement of the state party’s mostly dismal record in support of African Americans who run statewide.

Jackson, whose eloquence generally goes unacknowledged because of his preference for pith to piety, said in introducing Turner that he had observed her career from its beginning, and that she had always been a “fierce advocate” and fervent “fighter” for the causes she believes in.

Turner was well prepared for today’s program. Her unusually smart professional appearance was noted by several of the veteran politicos in attendance.

State Sen. Nina Turner standing with youthful admirers after announcing her candidacy for Ohio Secretary of State. If she wins both a primary and the general election in 2014, she will become the first African American Democrat ever to win a statewide election.

“She has obviously stepped up her game,” said one, while another noted that was one of the benefits of running for statewide office. “Your network of supporters and advisers gets bigger”, he said.

The upfront support from Congresswoman Fudge and Mayor Jackson augur well for the huge local vote Turner will need if she is to become the first African American Democrat ever to win statewide office. Just last year Turner was publicly mulling a primary challenge to Fudge for the Eleventh District seat Fudge has held since 2008. And Turner stood virtually alone against the entire black political establishment in 2009 when she stumped for Issue 6, a reform measure that tossed out Cuyahoga County’s centuries-old system of governance that had rotted under old party leadership.

But today, standing in the Harvard Community Center, just a few blocks from the John F. Kennedy High School she graduated from as a first step to an eventual master’s degree from Cleveland State, and a position on the faculty of Cuyahoga Community College, Turner was surrounded and applauded by almost as many former political foes as longtime friends, including many labor and religious leaders who had sought to preserve the old-time political structures Turner was intent on demolishing.

As the first in her family to attend college, Turner likes to refer to herself as a “cycle-breaker”. If she goes to win the Democratic Party nomination next spring and then defeats the Republican incumbent in November 2014, she will be even more of a cycle-breaker. She will need a broad coalition of support to accomplish her goal. If the smoothness of today’s program and the support of those in attendance, who also included leaders of Cleveland’s feminist and gay communities, and key financial supporters, as well as political leaders from across northeast Ohio are any occasion, she is off to a good start in what will undoubtedly be a long and difficult campaign.

Turner is scheduled to campaign later today in Toledo. She will be in Dayton tomorrow, Columbus on Wednesday, and Youngstown on Thursday, July 4.

Wednesday Politics RICHMOND HEIGHTS: Longtime mayor to face opposition

Wednesday Politics

RICHMOND HEIGHTS: Longtime mayor to face opposition

[Editor’s Note: Technical difficulties prevented our posting yesterday. We couldn’t get online.]

This is the first of a series of periodic snapshots on local 2013 municipal election campaigns.

This blog took a big leap forward in May 2011 when we followed our curiosity to Richmond Heights and its sociocultural struggles as they were being played out in its high school basketball program. Over the course of the following nine months some of our most widely read and circulated pieces covered key developments in the small but significant bedroom community [See here, here, and here].

Sometime this year we will return to the Richmond Heights school district to catch up on how the district is faring educationally. We can report today however that, thanks to a nearly complete turnover of the district school board, the costly shenanigans rooted in cronyism and race have pretty much disappeared. Only one member remains from the Board’s January 2011 organizational meeting.

Richmond Heights Board of Education, from left: Carmela Carter, Frank Barber, Linda Pliodzinkas, Tamitra Peavy and Bobby Jordan Sr. Jordan is president, Barber is vice president.

In reporting on Richmond Heights schools we came to understand the ways in which the district’s issues were only a part of the city’s underperformance. The city was in such financial straits that it would have been placed under fiscal watch in 2011 had the current standards of the State Auditor been in place at the time.

Perhaps this is the reason that the city’s longtime mayor, Daniel Ursu, in office since 1989, stopped giving "State of the City" addresses after 2010. His office told us today that he is working on an SOC this year.

Richmond Heights has four municipal races this year: mayor, council president, and the two council at large seats. These are held, respectively, by Ursu, David Roche, Miesha Wilson Headen, and Donald O’Toole.

Eloise Henry
Ward 3 Councilwoman

Miesha Wilson Headen
Councilwoman at Large

Whether Ursu pursues his seventh four year term may turn on whether he relishes a challenge from at least one and perhaps two or more city council members. While ward 3 councilwoman Eloise Henry is telling friends that she is in the race “no matter who else is running”, Headen faces a choice between running for reelection to the seat she won four years ago in her first try for public office, or going up against her colleague and perhaps others in a mayoral bid. The answer will likely depend on how much money she thinks she can raise.

Council president Roche told us that he is leaning towards running for re-election as opposed to seeking the mayor’s seat. Likewise, O'Toole says that he expects to run for re-election.

Ursu has yet to announce his plans.

Candidates can begin circulating petitions on June 8 and must file them by August 7. Richmond Heights offices are nonpartisan. The city has no primary.

Gender Gap between parties is growing

Prof. Karen Beckwith

Political scientist Karen Beckwith will lead a discussion this Friday on why Democratic women in Congress outnumber their Republican colleagues by such a hefty margin and what significance this may or may not have.

Beckwith, the Flora Stone Mather Professor of Political Science at Case Western Reserve University, will be the featured guest at this week’s Public Affairs Discussion Group from 12:30 to 1:30PM in the Kelvin Smith Library Dampeer Room. The library is adjacent to Severance Hall.

Eighty percent of female senators and more than 75 percent of female representatives are Democrats.

All-but announced 2013 State candidate Nina Turner to speak in Shaker Heights

State Senator and Minority Whip Nina Turner, D-25, who delivered impromptu remarks that fired up a diverse crowd of Democratic activists two weeks ago when state party chair Chris Redfern was in town, returns to the same location tomorrow. This time the microphone will have her name on it, though she didn’t need it last time.

Turner is the presumptive frontrunner as her party’s nominee to take on Secretary of State Jon Husted next year. Husted is a prime target for those upset by the restrictive voting procedures he has sought to impose since he won the seat in 2010. She is expected to talk about voting reforms but it’s a fair assumption that her talk will be anything but dry.

The program begins at 7PM at the Stephanie Tubbs Jones Community Center, 3450 Lee Road.

The event is open to the public and refreshments will be provided. Sponsors include the Cuyahoga Democratic Women's Caucus, Beachwood-Woodmere Democratic Ward Club, Bedford/Walton Hills Democratic Party, Cleveland Stonewall Democrats, Ohioans for Democratic Values, Shaker Heights Democratic Club, South Euclid Democratic Club and University Heights Democratic Club.

Note to Republicans: we know some of you read these posts. We will be pleased to report your events in this space, as we have done in the past. Send your announcements to us here.

County Executive to speak in Cleveland Heights next week

Finally, Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald will be at Grace Lutheran Church, 13001 Cedar Road, Cleveland Heights, at 7PM next Thursday, February 28 for what sponsors Cleveland Stonewall Democrats and Cuyahoga Democratic Women’s Caucus are billing as a “conversation”.

Free; open; refreshments.

PROPOSED REFERENDUM ON HOUSE BILL 194 REQUIRES ADDITIONAL SIGNATURES

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted announced today that almost 10,000 additional signatures are needed by next week to place House Bill 194 to a statewide referendum next year.

Petitioners seeking to place House Bill 194, “the voter suppression” bill on the November 2012 ballot need almost 9600 more valid signatures to get the referendum on the ballot. They submitted 333,063 total signatures, of which only 221,572, about two-thirds, were valid.

Petitioners now have ten days, until Thursday, November 24, to gather the additional valid signatures. The petitions submitted have satisfied the other constitutional requirements to collect signatures from at least 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties, and within each of those counties collected enough signatures equal to three percent of the total vote cast for governor in the most recent gubernatorial election, 2010. The three percent threshold was achieved in 52 counties.

Failure to secure the additional signatures would result in immediate application of HB 194, including curtailment of early voting.

Congressional Democrats hold hearing on nationwide voting law changes

In Washington DC, today, House Democrats, including Representative Marcia Fudge (OH-11), held a forum entitled “Excluded from Democracy: The Impact of Recent State Voting Law Changes”.  

Here are excerpts from Rep. Fudge’s opening remarks:

"It is time that the American people hear from more than just us that there is a concerted effort across this country to limit, to suppress and to undo our right to vote. It is deliberate and it is by design. From Ohio to Wisconsin, down to Florida, across Texas, the franchise is under attack today in this country. A certain predetermined segment of Americans are being targeted; young people, the elderly, our disabled and minorities, will all feel the repercussions of this concerted effort. There's nothing new about what we're seeing today if you have lived as long as I have lived. These are the tactics that have been used for years to compromise the franchise.” …

“Legislation passed or proposed in the state of Ohio, which is my home, and a number of other states has ended Sunday voting. Think about it, Ohio's Republican legislature has voted to reduce not only Sunday voting but voting early from currently what was 35 days a year ago down to 16 days. In 2008, African-American voters accounted for 22% of early votes and 31% of Sunday voters. Latinos accounted for 22% of Sunday voters. Minorities who work long hours all week and don't get time off need the flexibility that early voting and Sunday voting provide. On Saturdays and Sundays, before Election Day, people of faith across the country remind their parishioners to vote. But those orchestrating this suppression effort know full well the importance of Sunday voting and early voting. They know minorities in particular will be disproportionately impacted by these laws.”