Columbus, OH — Yesterday, the Senate Finance Committee slipped an anti-democratic amendment into the Senate version of Sub. HB 110, the state budget bill. The language upends the bipartisan redistricting processes Ohio voters overwhelmingly reformed in 2015 and 2018, allowing only the speaker of the Ohio House or the president of the Ohio Senate to intervene in redistricting lawsuits and use public funding to do so.
Because the Ohio House and Senate are both controlled by a supermajority of Republican members, the language is definitively designed to exclude minority legislative leadership—and even the executive branch of government. If Ohioans need to file a lawsuit against new district maps, they will have done so because they believe the maps were gerrymandered in pursuit of partisan power. The language included in the Senate’s version of the budget is designed to give the Republican supermajority an unwarranted seat at the table when Ohio’s Supreme Court reviews alleged gerrymandering.
In response, the following quote can be attributed to Heather Taylor-Miesle, President of the Ohio Environmental Council Action Fund:
“When a bipartisan group of legislators and advocates came to the negotiation tables in 2018, everyone agreed we needed to ensure a fair redistricting process. The Senate Finance Committee is attempting to break the spirit of that deal.
“The amendment sends a clear signal: some legislators in the General Assembly don't intend to create our new maps in good faith and cannot be trusted to ensure a thorough and transparent redistricting process.
“The OEC Action Fund calls on Ohio lawmakers to stop this political game and return to the spirit of compromise in the 2018 deal. We urge all members of the Senate to stand against this amendment and the power grab it represents. Gov. DeWine, Attorney General Yost and House Speaker Cupp should call out the Senate’s amendment and uphold Ohio voters’ decisive mandate to end partisan gerrymandering.”
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