Ohio Republicans approve misleading ballot language to favor gerrymandering

Ohio voters could see an extremely misleading description of a proposal to curb extreme partisan gerrymandering on their November ballots after Republicans approved controversial language on Friday.

At issue is how to describe a proposal that would create a 15-person citizen commission to draw congressional and state legislative districts in Ohio. The commission – five Democrats, five Republicans and five independents – would be prohibited from drawing districts that “that favor one political party and disfavor others”.

But the language approved on Friday by the Republican-controlled Ohio ballot board misrepresents the proposal – instead leading voters to think they have less power in the process. It says the commissioners would be “required to gerrymander the boundaries of state legislative and congressional districts to favor the two largest political parties in the state of Ohio”.

The GOP-approved summary also misrepresents how difficult it would be to remove a commissioner from the panel, telling voters the proposal would “prevent a commission member from being removed, except by a vote of their fellow commission members, even for incapacity, willful neglect of duty or gross misconduct”.

But the proposal expressly says that commissioners can be removed from “wanton and willful neglect of duty or gross misconduct or malfeasance in office, incapacity or inability to perform his or her duties, or behavior involving moral turpitude or other acts that undermine the public’s trust in the commission and the redistricting process”. It says that only the commission can remove a commissioner after giving public notice and holding a hearing with public comment.

Supporters of the amendment, a coalition called Citizens not Politicians, said they would sue over the language in the Ohio supreme court next week.

“It’s one grotesque abuse of power after another from politicians desperate to protect the current system that only benefits themselves and their lobbyist friends,” said Maureen O’Connor, a Republican who recently retired from the state supreme court and helped draft the amendment. “Do the politicians not see how angry voters are when they keep breaking the law to protect their own power? Secretary of State Frank LaRose voted seven times for maps that courts ruled were unconstitutional, and this week he violates the constitution with objectively false ballot language. It’s a desperate abuse of power, and it’s not going to work.”

Ohio’s current districts are heavily tilted in favor of the GOP and Republicans defied several rulings from the state supreme court to make the districts more fair. Republicans also unsuccessfully sought to make it nearly impossible to pass a constitutional amendment last summer.

The language approved on Friday, reportedly drafted by Ohio’s secretary of state, Frank LaRose, also says the measure would “repeal constitutional protections against gerrymandering approved by nearly three quarters of Ohio electors participating in the statewide elections of 2015 and 2018”. While Ohio voters did approve anti-gerrymandering reforms in those years, Republicans ignored them when they redrew districts after the 2020 census. Organizers drafted the amendment pushing for the independent commission after Republicans were able to keep gerrymandered districts in place in 2022.

“I’ve never seen ballot language this dishonest and so blatantly illegal,” Don McTigue, a lawyer representing the group pushing for the anti-gerrymandering amendment, said in a statement. “Ohio’s constitution and Ohio state law explicitly require the secretary of state and ballot board to provide voters with accurate and fair language about constitutional amendments when they vote. It’s insulting to voters, and I’m embarrassed for the secretary of state.”

This is not the first time the Ohio ballot board has tried to put misleading language on the ballot. Last year, the board tried to distort language on a constitutional amendment to protect abortion rights and replace the word “fetus” with “unborn child” and omit forms of reproductive healthcare the amendment would guarantee. The Ohio supreme court ordered the board to rewrite some of the language.