The groups working on a constitutional amendment to change the way Congressional districts are created in Ohio spent this weekend managing a setback for their effort to get the issue on the ballot.
The amendment would create a bipartisan commission to draw Congressional district lines and would require at least one minority party member to approve the map. It’s modeled after a plan for Statehouse districts voters approved in 2015. Attorney General Mike DeWine has ruled there are problems with the ballot language. Catherine Turcer with Common Cause Ohio says that’s not unusual.
“It is, what I’m thinking of is a speed bump on the road to redistricting reform. Advocates for redistricting reform have been at this for years. This is just one of the things that kind of happens now and then.”
Turcer hopes to have the language corrected and another thousand-plus signatures refiled in the next few days. But with the 2017 ballot deadline in July, the proposal almost certainly won’t be before voters this fall.
