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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2009 > July > 21 > Entry
Editorial: Is redistricting victim of budget war?
One apparent casualty of the budget war in Columbus is election reform — asking voters this November to change how Ohio draws legislative districts.
Reformers — including people from both political parties — wanted to ask voters to amend the state constitution to create a nonpartisan system for drawing legislative districts, a long overdue idea.
The plan was to ask the question this year, before the parties get a good fix on which party is going to come out of the 2010 elections with control of the redistricting process, which one of them will under current law.
But getting the measure on the ballot would require getting 60 percent support in both houses of the Legislature, which has been a bit preoccupied. So now the reformers are looking at next spring.
That’s worrisome. To be approved by voters, the measure needs energetic support from the leaders of both parties. Sen. Jon Husted, R-Kettering, one of the reformers, says that’s realistic.
It will never happen in an election year.
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