An Ohio group sued state officials on Monday for approving a “biased” ballot title and language for an anti-gerrymandering amendment last week.
Citizens Not Politicians, a campaign to end gerrymandering, gathered signatures to get an amendment on the ballot this November to establish a 15-member citizen redistricting commission. The group said this commission would take the power of drawing congressional and legislative districts out of the hands of politicians.
On Friday, the GOP-controlled Ohio Ballot Board voted to approve the title and language for the amendment. The board members went with Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s (R) language, instead of what was proposed by the initiative’s organizers.
The organizers said they would pursue legal action, and they did, filing a lawsuit against LaRose and members of the board in the Supreme Court of Ohio.
“Before the Court is what may be the most biased, inaccurate, deceptive, and unconstitutional ballot language ever adopted by the Ohio Ballot Board,” the plaintiffs argued in the lawsuit.
In their complaint, Citizens Not Politicians said the ballot language violates provisions of the Ohio Constitution that state ballot language “shall properly identify the substance of the proposal to be voted upon” and must not “mislead, deceive, or defraud the voters.”
The campaign provides multiple examples of misleading language. Most notably, they said that the purpose of the amendment is to end partisan gerrymandering, but the adopted ballot language says it would “[e]stablish a new taxpayer funded commission of appointees required to gerrymander the boundaries of state legislative and congressional districts to favor the two largest political parties in the state of Ohio.”
Also, the title of the measure is: “To create an appointed redistricting commission not elected by or subject to removal by the voters of the state,” which the group says is especially biased.
The organizers argued LaRose and the ballot board members — who are state legislators — used language to make the amendment sound less appealing to voters in order to hold onto their authority.
“Politicians do not wish to give up power, they oppose the Amendment, and they’re using control of the Ballot Board to try to influence voters with ballot language so farcically biased and deceptive that it approaches comedy,” the plaintiffs said in the lawsuit.
The plaintiffs asked the state’s highest court to mandate that the Ballot Board reconvene and adopt ballot language and a title that “properly and lawfully” describe the amendment.
Dan Lusheck, LaRose’s spokesperson, said in an email statement Tuesday that the secretary of state’s office is working with Attorney General Dave Yost (R) to file a response and argued that the language the board approved is “fair and factual.”
“It accurately identifies the substance of the amendment being voted on, and Ohio voters deserve truth and transparency when being asked to rewrite substantial portions of our state’s founding document. That’s what the approved summary provides,” Lusheck said. “We’ll need a quick decision by the court. Military ballots begin going out in about four weeks, and early absentee voting begins in less than 50 days.”
Previous update, Aug. 16
The Republican-controlled Ohio Ballot Board voted 3-2 to approve language for an anti-gerrymandering amendment, which the initiative’s organizers said is “deceptive” and “unconstitutional,” and will be challenged in court.
Last month, Citizens Not Politicians — a campaign to end gerrymandering — collected thousands of signatures to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot to establish a citizen-redistricting commission that could get politicians out of the congressional and legislative map-drawing process.
The campaign faced challenges even in getting it approved to start the signature-gathering process as Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost (R) rejected the proposal’s language multiple times.
For Friday’s meeting, the campaign submitted a proposal for what the November ballot initiative should say, and Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) wrote his own version as well.
During the meeting, led by LaRose, the majority of the board members voted to approve the secretary of state’s language instead of the campaign’s language.
“The language is inaccurate, deceitful and deceptive and designed to skew the results to influence voters in a prejudicial way,” said Don McTigue, an attorney representing Citizens Not Politicians, at the meeting.
He also said the verbiage fails to meet the standards outlined in the Ohio Constitution regarding ballot language.
Democratic State Sen. Paula Hicks Hudson said under the state constitution, voters should be able to make “an honest decision based upon impartial, fair language,” and this approved language does not adhere to that.
In fact, Citizens Not Politicians said in a statement that LaRose’s title for the ballot measure — “To create an appointed redistricting commission not elected by or subject to removal by the voters of the state” — is especially biased. Also, the campaign noted that Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) recently publicly opposed this initiative.
One of McTigue’s other criticisms of LaRose’s nearly 900-word proposal is that it is too long and that lengthy initiatives on the ballot tend to get rejected by voters because they may not feel they understand it.
“I think there are a lot of reasons that long language works in favor of the no vote,” McTigue said.
This is in contrast to the campaign’s succinct proposal that includes five bullet points. However, LaRose said that it doesn’t matter how the members of the citizen-redistricting commission are selected, which he argues is important.
“The ballot language fails to properly identify one of the key elements of the proposed constitutional amendment,” LaRose said.
McTigue responded by saying if someone wants to know the answer to that question they can review the full text of the amendment, which is available online and at the polling places.
“It’s always easy to come up with additional things that should be in there, and you can debate how important it is to have this versus that. The ultimate goal of a condensed text is to be a condensed text,” McTigue said.
Toward the end of the Friday board meeting, Republican State Sen. Theresa Gavarone decided to amend LaRose’s already controversial ballot language.
She wanted to take it a step further by saying the citizen-redistricting commission that would be established by the initiative — which strives to end partisan gerrymandering — will actually be “required to gerrymander” the maps.
This was met by gasps and angry rumblings from the audience watching the meeting unfold.
“By doing this, we’re taking a bad situation and making it worse,” Democratic State Sen. Terrence Upchurch said.
Then, that motion was approved, and LaRose’s language — with that added detail — passed.
“I think we’re making a tragic error. A day of reckoning is forthcoming, and the people of Ohio are going to speak,” Upchurch said. “I also want to say to the people that got those signatures: hold the line, continue to fight; we’re almost there. It’s just another bump in the road.”
In a Friday statement, Citizens Not Politicians announced they would seek an expedited ruling from the Ohio Supreme Court “directing the Ballot Board to fulfill its legal duty to adopt ballot language for Issue 1 that is true, impartial and compliant with all requirements of the Ohio Revised Code and the Ohio Constitution.”
Previous update, July 23The Ohio citizen-initiated constitutional amendment to end gerrymandering officially qualified to be on the ballot this November, Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) announced Tuesday.
Citizens Not Politicians, a campaign to end gerrymandering in Ohio, introduced the amendment to have an independent citizen commission draw congressional and legislative maps instead of lawmakers. The group announced earlier this month that they collected 731,306 signatures in 57 counties.
The initiative needed at least 413,487 signatures — 10% of the total vote cast in the last gubernatorial election — to appear on the ballot. Also, the signatures need to be obtained from at least 5% of the vote total in at least 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties.
On Tuesday, LaRose confirmed the validity of 535,005 signatures in 58 counties, which isn’t as many as the group publicly reported, but the number still surpasses the required threshold.
The measure will next be discussed at an Ohio Ballot Board meeting to consider the ballot language and title, according to LaRose’s statement.
Original post, July 2Citizens Not Politicians, a campaign to end gerrymandering in Ohio, has collected over 700,000 signatures on a ballot initiative that would fundamentally change how congressional and legislative maps are drawn.
“Ohio has one of the most extreme cases of gerrymandering in the country,” the campaign said in a statement.
The campaign seeks to amend the state constitution with the Citizens Not Politicians Amendment, which would take map-drawing power from lawmakers and instead vest it in a 15-member independent citizen commission.
Chris Davey, spokesperson for Citizens Not Politicians, said it’s important to take politicians out of the equation here because “their number one consideration is to keep them and all of their friends in power.”
The commission’s members would represent all political parties, different geographical areas and the demographics of the state.
Davey said it’s important that all political parties are represented because gerrymandering is a nonpartisan issue. He said that both Democrats and Republicans have been guilty of this.
Citizens Not Politicians said in a statement that all 99 seats in the Ohio House of Representatives are up for election in November, but “uncompetitive districts and uncontested races all but guarantee victory to one party,” and “millions of Ohioans won’t have a voice in state politics.”
More than 9 million Ohioans, about 77% of the state’s population, reside in districts “where elections for state representatives are not in serious dispute,” according to an analysis from the Brennan Center for Justice.
Also, the Ohio Supreme Court has struck down congressional and legislative maps for being unconstitutional seven different times.
“And seven times the politicians ignored the court,” Davey said. “They flaunted the rule of law and they thumbed their noses at the citizens of Ohio, and they imposed those unconstitutional gerrymandered maps anyway.”
The campaign also noted the Brennan Center for Justice has endorsed this ballot initiative.
“Under current rules, politicians and lobbyists draw district maps behind closed doors with virtually no checks and balances,” the Brennan Center for Justice said on its website. “But if Ohio voters approve the Citizens Not Politicians Amendment this November, all that could change.”
Ohio allows for citizen-initiated constitutional amendments, and to be accepted by the secretary of state, they need to have signatures from 10% of the vote total in the most recent gubernatorial election. Currently, the campaign said that this number would be 413,487, and this ballot initiative received 731,306 signatures.
Also, the signatures need to be obtained from at least 5% of the vote total in at least 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties, and Citizens Not Politicians said they achieved this in 57 counties. One in nine registered Ohio voters signed this petition, the campaign said.
On Monday, Citizens Not Politicians — a grassroots, nonpartisan coalition of Ohio voters, organizations, businesses and thought leaders — delivered the boxes of signed petitions to Ohio Secretary of State Frank Larose’s (R) office for verification.
Then, hundreds of people gathered at the state’s capitol building for a rally to continue to fight for this issue.
“We had over 400 people there, filled the State House atrium and sent a very clear message that we are done with gerrymandering, and we’re going to fix it on November 5,” Davey said.
The Republican National Committee sent letters last week to the Democratic secretaries of state in eight states, falsely accusing them of allowing noncitizens to vote in their state’s elections.
