Ohio Republicans Unveil Maps That Expand 2011 Gerrymander

For Immediate Release: 
November 3, 2021

Contact:
Brooke Lillard
lillard@redistrictingaction.org

Columbus, OH - Today, the state Republican House and Senate caucuses unveiled their proposed congressional maps. This follows their failure to adopt a bipartisan 10-year congressional map during the two earlier stages in this process. Instead, Republicans revealed their draft maps with less than a month to go in our congressional process. Additionally, to prepare for upcoming hearings tomorrow, the public was required to submit testimony hours before the Republicans even publicized their maps, essentially denying Ohioans the ability to effectively respond to them. 

“For the last decade, Ohioans have lived with some of the most gerrymandered congressional districts in the country and the Republicans just managed to propose two maps that are even worse than the one we have now,” said Katy Shanahan, Ohio State Director for All On The Line. “It’s clear that the Republicans are approaching this redistricting cycle just as they did the one in 2011 with maps drawn in secret, without any real interest in public input, and with egregiously gerrymandered district lines.”

“The proposed Republican maps would relegate Ohio to another ten years of our political power being undercut, our voices stymied at the ballot box, and our communities being carved apart for partisan gain,” Shanahan continued. “Both of these maps are, to take a word from Secretary LaRose, asinine. They are an outrageous insult to us as voters, to our communities, and to our democracy. Ohioans deserve better than this, and we will be working hard in the coming weeks to make sure these maps are not enacted.”

The proposed Republican maps do the following: 

1. Favor Politicians Over People: Across the state, the Republican proposed maps are heavily gerrymandered to give Republicans a vast majority of congressional seats for the next decade. Despite the fact that Republicans have won just 54 percent of the statewide share of votes across the last decade, the Republican-proposed maps would give their own party’s candidates a staggering 87 percent of the seats. The House-proposed map does not include any competitive districts and the Senate-proposed map includes just three or four competitive seats. That level of partisan discrepancy is an affront to our democracy.

2. Dilute the Political Power of Communities of Color: The proposed maps undermine the political power of Ohio’s communities of color with districts that masterfully crack them apart from more similar communities or pack them into fewer districts – both of which result in diluting the strength of their votes. 
   
   For example, under both maps the Black and Latino communities in Cuyahoga County are packed into just one district while the AAPI communities are cracked apart into separate districts. Franklin County’s Black communities are split into two to three districts, depending on the map. Toledo’s Black communities are split into two districts. Black communities in Springfield are carved apart from more similar communities in Dayton and Montgomery counties. The maps also split apart Cincinnati’s Black and AAPI communities into different districts. 

3. Split Up Populous, Diverse Areas: Each map unnecessarily splits apart Ohio’s major metropolitan areas and their surrounding suburbs, denying those areas the ability to elect leaders of their choice. For example, under the Senate Republican proposed map, the Ohio Statehouse in downtown Columbus is drawn into a district that goes all the way up to rural northwest Ohio, including Lima. The House-proposed map pairs parts of Akron with the rural Appalachian Hocking Hills region in southeast Ohio. 

All On The Line will - as we have for more than two years - continue to organize Ohioans to engage in the redistricting process to ensure that the maps that we get are ones that are fair, representative of our communities, and reflective of our voters.
 

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