Great summary. The fundamental challenge with the Citizens Not Politicians proposal is that it needs some Republican support to pass, but it imposes strict proportionality in a red-leaning state with a significant geography bias, rather than giving the commission the flexibility to find the right balance between proportionality and a non-partisan draw. If Ohio continues to lean red, forcing proportionality will reduce the number of light red districts, exacerbating extremism.
Some quibbles on your technical content:
1) This states that the 11/2021 Ohio Congressional map was passed by the ORC when it was the state legislature
2) This report omits the fact that Ohio's current legislative partisan fairness standards include a Article XI.6A that many would interpret as commanding a partisan-blind draw, which conflicts with XI.6B's "closely correspond" implying (though not stating) a strict proportionality. From my personal experience in Ohio 2021, this contributed significantly to the impasse.
3) For a 54/46 Ohio 99-seat map, a partisan-blind draw would not average 53 - 59% GOP. It's closer to 63%. The responsiveness is about 2.0 and Ohio's geography bias is actually higher for a 99-seat vs. a 15-seat map.
4) Technically, Akron, Toledo and Dayton can be split Congressionally because they are in counties that do not exceed a Congressional district pop; Summit, Lucas and Montgomery Counties don't qualify for XIX.2B4.
Again, overall great in-depth look at this challenging state. -Geoff Wise
Great summary. The fundamental challenge with the Citizens Not Politicians proposal is that it needs some Republican support to pass, but it imposes strict proportionality in a red-leaning state with a significant geography bias, rather than giving the commission the flexibility to find the right balance between proportionality and a non-partisan draw. If Ohio continues to lean red, forcing proportionality will reduce the number of light red districts, exacerbating extremism.
Some quibbles on your technical content:
1) This states that the 11/2021 Ohio Congressional map was passed by the ORC when it was the state legislature
2) This report omits the fact that Ohio's current legislative partisan fairness standards include a Article XI.6A that many would interpret as commanding a partisan-blind draw, which conflicts with XI.6B's "closely correspond" implying (though not stating) a strict proportionality. From my personal experience in Ohio 2021, this contributed significantly to the impasse.
3) For a 54/46 Ohio 99-seat map, a partisan-blind draw would not average 53 - 59% GOP. It's closer to 63%. The responsiveness is about 2.0 and Ohio's geography bias is actually higher for a 99-seat vs. a 15-seat map.
4) Technically, Akron, Toledo and Dayton can be split Congressionally because they are in counties that do not exceed a Congressional district pop; Summit, Lucas and Montgomery Counties don't qualify for XIX.2B4.
Again, overall great in-depth look at this challenging state. -Geoff Wise
Thank you for the thoughtful comments.
Also thank you for flagging those points.