Ohioans won't vote to change redistricting again. Is the state headed toward a four-year Statehouse district map?

Every 10 years, Ohio redraws its state and congressional district lines. And every 10 years, the process turns into a partisan political fight.

This year, the process was supposed to be different: less focused on protecting those already in power and more centered on keeping communities together.

Ohioans amended the state constitution twice just to make sure of it. The new rules limited how many counties can be divided and required approval from Democrats, the state's minority party. They even set specific dates for every step in the process. 

Then, the COVID-19 hit. The pandemic delayed critical data from the U.S. Census Bureau, threatening to push Ohio's designated map makers past their constitutional deadlines.

A Republican unsuccessfully proposed amending Ohio's constitution again. Democrats suggested asking the state Supreme Court for an extension.

Looming in the background was a third option, a measure of last resort laid out in Ohio's Constitution: The majority party of Republican lawmakers could draw and pass their own map without a single Democratic vote. 

A map could be passed quickly, but  those districts would only last four years. They'd have to come back and pass another six-year map in 2025, and the rules for carving up communities would be stricter. 

"I think for a lot of people they immediately think those maps would be terrible, but that's not necessarily true," Catherine Turcer, a redistricting reform advocate and director of Common Cause Ohio, said. 

A four-year map

The process of drawing Ohio's 99 state House and 33 state Senate districts is done by a seven-member commission: the governor, secretary of state, auditor and one representative from each major party in each the Ohio House and Senate.

The commission has until Sept. 1 to create and vote on a bipartisan set of maps. If they can't, the Republicans can submit their own maps for consideration. Then, they get a choice: Tweak those maps until the two Democrats support them or pass what they have on a party-line vote by Sept. 15. 

If Republicans choose the latter, the maps only last four years. 

And therein lies the problem. Updated population data from the census bureau was supposed to be delivered in April. Now, it's expected Aug. 16, but the numbers could come as late as Sept. 30. 

"It may be that we can't draw a map by Sept. 1 under any circumstances," Senate President Matt Huffman, R-Lima, said. 

He wanted to amend the state constitution so lawmakers could set new deadlines in October or November. Democrats opposed the idea, and the plan died Wednesday. 

"One thing we can do is, well, pass a map as soon as we can," Huffman said. "We know that we will have gone past the deadline to have a 10-year map as required, so let's go ahead and pass our four-year map."

Why? Because Ohio's constitution has another deadline in it. State lawmakers must live in their districts one year prior to Election Day, Nov. 8.

Giving folks a week or two to move would also be unfair, Huffman said. He wants to give people as much time as possible to decide whether they want to move. 

"It's a failure of the system," Huffman said. But it might be the best of a bunch of bad options. 

"Our biggest fear is late maps and a rush to recruit, trying to navigate potential primaries," Ohio Democratic Party Chairwoman Liz Walters said at an Impact Ohio conference in late April. 

She's realistic, however, about the tradeoffs that come with moving quickly. 

"Do I want a 10-year map? Yeah," Walters said. "Do I think we're going to get one? I don't."

Gerrymandered districts

In the 10 years since Ohio drew its maps, the number of Republican lawmakers in both the Ohio House and Senate has continued to rise. Even the resignations of former House Speakers Cliff Rosenberger and Larry Householder didn't dent their numbers.

Republicans control 75% of the seats in the Senate even though Ohio consistently votes 55% to 45% for statewide Republican candidates. 

Democrats say that's gerrymandering, plain and simple. And the state's congressional districts aren't any better. Not a single one changed hands in the last decade. 

"Representatives don't get voted out," University of Cincinnati professor David Niven said. "They get bored and retire."

Ohio's redistricting amendments were supposed to change that.

The Statehouse rules say no "plan shall be drawn primarily to favor or disfavor a political party." They also set specific guidelines for splitting counties, cities and municipalities. 

Those rules can't change even if Republicans draw a four-year map, Niven said. "We’re getting smarter about forcing criteria into the process."

Still, he thinks there's more than one way to spread a gerrymandered cat across a map of Ohio. 

Mapping software can draw hundreds or even thousands of map combinations, and software has reached a point where it can learn from feedback programmers give it. Clever mapmakers can follow the rules while still creating districts that favor one political party. 

"If the mission is to draw them fairly, it’s actually a pretty easy process," he said. "It's harder to draw what we have now."

Instead of simply keeping communities together, you have to go street by street searching for the "right" groups of voters to include and exclude. 

"If you look at the ziggy zaggy lines that cut through Cincinnati, that is gerrymandering," he said. 

Those maneuvers could still find their way into the new maps. Republicans and Democrats struck a deal back in 2011 to create the current congressional districts. 

That's why it's so important for people to get involved, Turcer said. Voters understand their communities better than anyone else. They can look at a map and see their kid's school straddling two districts, or ask why a line runs down the middle of their neighborhood. 

"I don't want voters to walk away with the notion that because of the pandemic this is all over ...," Turcer said. "It's going to take a lot of eyes all over Ohio looking at our own communities to identify spots where it doesn't look right."

Reporter Jessie Balmert contributed reporting to this story.