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Ohio Dems spent mapmaking money on PR, lawyer

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By JULIE CARR SMYTH, The Associated Press Updated 5:36 PM Friday, December 16, 2011

COLUMBUS, Ohio — As attacks on Ohio Republicans heat up over their handling of congressional redistricting, state records show Democrats didn't use their mapmaking money from taxpayers to draw any lines at all.

They spent $40,000 of their allotted $150,000 to hire a liberal think tank with ties to former Gov. Ted Strickland for help with public relations, and for help assessing Republican legislative maps for potential violations of the federal Voting Rights Act that outlaws discriminatory voting practices.

A copy of the contract between legislative Democrats and Innovation Ohio, which was obtained by The Associated Press through a public records request, raises questions for the minority party as it alleges mishandling of the once-per-decade line-drawing process by the GOP.

Republicans had said during the process that without seeing maps desired by Democrats, they had no way of striking a compromise on lines. A final congressional map signed Thursday headed off a threatened 2012 ballot challenge of the new congressional lines by the Ohio Democratic Party. It will be in place through 2020.

House Democratic chief of staff Keary McCarthy said research and advice by Innovation Ohio played a key role in the mapmaking dialogue. In response to questioning from the AP, he produced seven data files exchanged between Republicans and Democrats beginning Nov. 1, including some lines generated by Democratic staffers.

Those lines mostly represented changes to majority Republicans' proposals. Democrats never produced a full map for public view; the one map they introduced was created by a Republican Illinois state lawmaker, Rep. Mike Fortner, who won a mapmaking contest run by a coalition of voter advocates.

"Understanding how to develop maps was jointly done through staff and consultants," he said. "All of that information helps us to understand how to draw a map, and that is essential through this period of time."

McCarthy said Republicans unveiled maps without Democratic input, then forced them through the Legislature without adequate time for Democrats to respond.

The think tank's public relations work was help "with a communications, media, editorial and public outreach program" related to the drawing of new legislative lines. The agreement runs through Dec. 31. Democrats also hired a lawyer, Lloyd Pierre-Louis of Wesp Barwell LLC, for $5,000 a month with their money, records show.

The Innovation Ohio agreement also was not signed until the second week of October, after both the congressional and legislative maps were finalized. It lists an effective date of Aug. 26, which fell about midway through the legislative redistricting process for which the help was commissioned.

House Republican spokesman Mike Dittoe questioned the legality of both contracts. He said legal contracts must be pre-approved by the state attorney general, and Democrats' weren't, and that retroactive contracts are prohibited under state law.

Ohio redraws legislative and congressional districts once every 10 years to reflect population shifts identified in the U.S. census. The state is losing two of 18 congressional seats this year due to lagging population growth; the state Legislature includes 99 representatives and 33 senators.

Creation of the two maps occurred in tandem. Congressional lines are drawn by the Legislature, and legislative lines by the Ohio Apportionment Board.

Democrats' contract with Innovation Ohio was solely for legislative redistricting, said company president Janetta King, who served as policy director to Strickland until January. Under Ohio's revolving-door law, King is prohibited for a year from working on any issues in which she played a personal role in her state job. She said she did not work on redistricting issues in the governor's office.

Sandy Theis, a consultant who helped craft the media strategy, said her advice focused on getting out the message that the mapmaking process needs reform.

"We talked largely about the reason we're seeing this hyper-partisan shift in Ohio, and one of the main reasons is because the mapmaking process encourages candidates from either the right wing or the left wing and the legislature's a body that moves forward on compromise," she said. "And unless we fix the system, we're not going to fix the problems that result from the system."

That message has been central as Democrats continue to criticize the mapmaking process.

Democratic state Rep. Dennis Murray asked two state watchdogs on Tuesday to investigate the way the GOP crafted new congressional and legislative maps — charging that Republicans who control the state legislature used a secretive process and that there may have been waste, fraud and violations of public records and other laws.

The request followed release of a report Monday that detailed the role of a representative for U.S. House Speaker John Boehner and the National Republican Congressional Committee in the process, nearly $10,000 in public money spent on a hotel room to secretly craft maps, and emails between the House chief of staff and his mapmaking consultant on the millions that more favorable Republican districts would save the party.

House Republican spokesman Mike Dittoe called it "very disingenuous of them to bill the taxpayers for their public relations effort while being critical of us for creating a competitive map."

With their share of the money, Republicans paid $105,000 apiece to two consultants — Ray DiRossi of Capital Advantage LLC, and Heather Mann of Policy Widgets LLC. Mann took a leave from her job as legal counsel to Republican Ohio House Speaker Bill Batchelder to perform the work, creating a private consulting company for the purpose. Democrats have asked for a review of the arrangement.

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December 16, 2011 10:31 PM EST

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