As early voting begins in Ohio, organizers for and against Issue 1 are beginning to take the road to convince voters to get on board.
Opponents of the amendment, which would take power to draw lawmakers' maps away from a panel of elected officials and put it with a 15-member citizens panel, are starting a bus tour around the state. But Issue 1's backers said they're going to let the momentum from months of footwork drive them over the finish line to a win.
“We are hosting a bus tour this week going across the state of Ohio with various stops across the state, with the goal really being to highlight that early voting is starting and encourage folks to get out and vote early," said Matt Dole of Ohio Works, the leading group against Issue 1.
Dole said the tour will give Issue 1 opponents an opportunity to talk with voters.
"There's maybe 15 stops across the state. We will be in Columbus and in Newark and in Cleveland and over in Northwest Ohio, Findlay, Ohio, and Putnam County - it's sort of across the state," Dole said.
“A bus tour? That’s cute. We’ve been on a foot tour for more than a year," said Chris Davey, a spokesman for Issue 1.
Davey said Citizens Not Politicians has been knocking on doors and speaking to voters for more than a year. The group collected more than a half million petition signatures from Republicans, independents, and Democrats in all 88 counties to put the amendment before voters.
"So then, with early voting getting underway, along comes a shadowy group with the Orwellian name, 'Ohio Works.' Look, there's one thing that Ohioans know doesn't work and that's politicians drawing ridiculously gerrymandered maps," Davey said. "I think a busload of lying politicians is going to be about as welcome in Ohio communities as Jim Harbaugh at an Ohio State tailgate."
If the amendment is approved, the seven members of the Ohio Redistricting Commission would be replaced with the Ohio Citizens Redistricting Commission. That group of five Republicans, five Democrats and five independents would be selected by retired judges to draw the legislative and congressional maps. Current or former elected officials, lobbyists or other political professionals would be banned from the process.
The Ohio Redistricting Commission, which was approved by voters in 2015 and 2018, created the current legislative and congressional maps. Those maps were ruled unconstitutional seven different times by the Ohio Supreme Court before a federal court allowed them to be used in 2022. The maps were tweaked and approved earlier this year with a unanimous vote of the commission, including its two Democratic members.
Republican former Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor, who was on the court at the time of those rulings, helped write the Citizens Not Politicians amendment and has been campaigning for it since retiring from the court in 2022.
