Carroll Commencement
Fairborn commencement
Badin graduation
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 > December > 17 > Entry
Editorial: House Dems are slackers on redistricting
Even aside from the budget issue — and the long delay in getting something enacted — the Ohio legislature has been getting a reputation for slowness and inaction.
In defense, Speaker Armond Budish, a Democrat from near Cleveland, points to bills that have passed the House of Representatives, but have failed in, or aren’t being acted on by, the Republican Senate.
His litany starts with a gay rights bill. But there isn’t much else that grabs attention on the list of 38 items.
At any rate, the idea is to get things through both houses.
Toward that end, Speaker Budish should put some energy into the simultaneously arcane and politically juicy matter of redistricting, that is, how legislative districts are drawn.
This is one area in which the Senate has acted, and the House hasn’t. The issue is important because the current system allows the parties to make too many districts unwinnable by one party or the other, thus limiting the power of voters.
Among other things, the current rules foster polarization, because candidates worry more about winning primaries than general elections.
On the initiative of Sen. Jon Husted, R-Kettering, the Senate has passed a bill that would basically do two things: create a nonpartisan commission to draw the districts — as opposed to the winner-draws-all system that prevails; and provide rules to guide the commission.
The House now needs to do the same.
The rules the House proposes would likely be different from those in the Husted bill.
That’s where the discussion becomes arcane.
Speaker Budish says that the Husted bill rules put too much emphasis on honoring county lines. He says that emphasis helps Republicans, because Democratic voters — while as numerous as Republicans — are concentrated in fewer counties.
The Democrats’ experts believe that compact districts — a goal of all reformers, to one degree or another — can be drawn without the restrictions the Husted proposal calls for.
It’s a debate that can wait until the Democrats pass something.
In discussing the current budget impasse, Speaker Budish emphasizes that the Republican Senate hasn’t passed anything. So he and his Democratic colleagues in the House can’t be considered the problem.
Fair point. But it also applies to the House on redistricting.
Truth is, just creating the non-partisan Husted commission, without new rules, would be progress.
(It wouldn’t be ideal, because such a commission might settle for balancing the number of Democratic and Republican districts, rather than seeking districts that could be won be either party. The rules need to encourage competitiveness.)
Any reform adopted by the legislature would have to go before voters, because the constitution would have to be changed. The schedule for doing that keeps slipping. Sen. Husted has hoped for a ballot issue in the spring. Speaker Budish is now looking at next November.
One might think the Democrats would be more eager for reform than the Republicans. After all, if the system is not changed, redistricting of the state legislature will be done after the 2010 Census by whichever party holds two of these positions: governor, secretary of state and state auditor.
The Democrats now hold two, but all three will be contested in 2010 and, as of now, few people see the year as shaping up great for the Democrats.
Furthermore, under the current rules, the Republicans could have complete control over redistricting as it applies to congressional seats. That map is drawn by the legislature and the governor, not by the commission that draws state legislative districts.
(There’s no way the Democrats could have complete control of the congressional districts, because they can’t pick up enough seats to take over the state Senate, now overwhelmingly Republican.)
And yet, enthusiasm has been hard to see on the Democratic side. The House bill doesn’t even reform the process relating to congressional districts. Speaker Budish says he has to limit the scope of the legislation if he is going to get anything passed. Not a good sign.
Somebody needs to light a fire under the Democrats. They have an opportunity do something important, concrete and long-overdue, without — near as anybody can tell — hurting themselves.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Martin Gottlieb, Ohio government, Ohio politics
Comments