Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, stares at a television screen showing a close-up of draft state legislative maps from outside mapmakers during a March 27, 2022 Ohio Redistricting Commission Meeting.
Andrew J. Tobias/Tribune News Service file photo
COLUMBUS, Ohio — The two co-chairs of the Ohio Redistricting Commission announced last week that the panel would meet on Sept. 13 to begin the process of drawing new state legislative maps.
But that date is now up in the air, as Attorney General Dave Yost says the co-chairs don’t have the constitutional power to schedule the meeting.
Yost, in a letter to the commission’s seven members, stated that under his reading of the Ohio Constitution, only Gov. Mike DeWine has the power to reconvene the commission after the Ohio Supreme Court invalidates a map passed by the commission.
The last time the redistricting commission met, in May 2022, Republican members re-approved a state legislative plan that the Ohio Supreme Court rejected as illegally gerrymandered. The map ended up being used anyway for last year’s Ohio House and Senate elections, but the court’s ruling means new boundaries need to be drawn for next year’s legislative elections.
DeWine, one of five Republicans on the commission, hasn’t yet decided whether to keep the meeting on Sept. 13 or move it to a different day, said his spokesman, Dan Tierney.
“We’ll announce the date in the near future,” Tierney said.
Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio, a Lakewood Democrat who co-chairs the redistricting commission, said her legal team had a different reading of the Ohio Constitution than Yost.
“One of the things I’ll say about this letter from the attorney general, is he could have made his opinion known about any of this in the last two years in terms of ‘What are we going to need to do going forward?’” Antonio said. “It’s a shame that we had to wait until we called (the meeting) and tried to get the ball rolling for this kind of an opinion.”
Antonio added that if Yost’s opinion is correct, the Ohio Constitution requires the redistricting commission to hold at least three public meetings around the state after the panel introduces a new proposed map.
“And then just get this done,” she said. “Because the people of Ohio deserve fair districts, and they deserve us working together in a timely manner.”
The other co-chair, Republican state Rep. Jeff LaRe of Fairfield County, said Tuesday that he’s going over Yost’s letter with the House GOP’s legal counsel.
Asked if the matter was a technical one or if it had more importance, LaRe replied, “It seems, at best, technical to me. But I’m not an attorney.”
Commission members on both sides of the aisle have said they hope to have a legislative district plan in place by Dec. 20, the deadline for candidates to file for the March 19, 2024, primary election.
Besides DeWine, LaRe and Antonio, other members of the Ohio Redistricting Commission include House Minority Leader Allison Russo, Secretary of State Frank LaRose, State Auditor Keith Faber, and either Senate President Matt Huffman or a Republican senator picked by him.
