Ohio's fall redistricting issue sparked a fight over one word. So what is “gerrymandering” anyway?

COLUMBUS, Ohio – All the political wrangling over Ohio's Topic 1, a statewide voting issue aimed at changing the way the state draws its political maps, has left voters in a bind. While they hear from the campaign behind the constitutional amendment that it would prevent gerrymandering, the ballots say that gerrymandering would be required.

It's a war over one word – “gerrymander” – and rarely have so many dictionaries been used during an Ohio campaign.

While there are certain neutral words to describe political mapmaking – for example, “redistricting” or “reapportionment”, the word “gerrymander” is typically used to imply that puppetry is underway to secure an unfair political advantage .

How the Republican-controlled Ohio Ballot Board turned the tables on Citizens Not Politicians, a nonpartisan and well-funded campaign pushing to replace Ohio's troubled redistricting system with an independent commission, uses the word in need of some elucidation.

Here's a look at what happened:

Issue 1 arose after courts declared that seven different versions of the congressional and legislative maps that Ohio created to reflect population changes from the 2020 census were unconstitutionally designed to favor Republicans.

The existing Ohio Redistricting Commission, which drew these maps, consists of three statewide elected officials and four state legislators — a mix that currently gives Republicans a 5-2 majority.

Ohioans voted overwhelmingly in 2015 to create the commission and move it out of statehouse districts. During this bipartisan campaign called “Fair Districts for Ohio,” they were promised that the new system would “protect against gerrymandering.” In 2018, voters gave the commission an additional role in a new system for drawing congressional districts.

Citizens Not Politicians argues that the existing system has failed. The group calls for the current regime to be replaced with an independent body made up of average citizens. Current and former politicians, party officials and lobbyists would be excluded from participation. The 15-member Ohio Citizens Redistricting Commission would include Republicans, Democrats and independents and represent a mix of the state's geographic and demographic characteristics.

From its inception, Citizens Not Politicians has stated that its mission is to “end gerrymandering.”

“There is so much energy from Ohioans across the political spectrum to end gerrymandering,” it said during the signature gathering. “We are mobilizing across the state to put citizens – not politicians – in charge of developing Ohio’s legislative plans in an open and transparent process.”

The definition of “gerrymander” from Webster’s Third New International Dictionary would apply here: “to unnaturally and unfairly divide into political units with the aim of conferring special advantages on one group.”

The campaign points to recent election results to make its case.

Because the litigation over maps related to the 2020 census was unresolved, the 2022 election took place under the unconstitutional maps. In these elections, Republicans won even larger supermajorities in the Statehouse, capturing about 66% of the Ohio House of Representatives and Congressional seats and nearly 79% of the Ohio Senate seats. Ohio's political split during this period was approximately 54% Republican and 46% Democrat.

Mapmaking rules outlined in the amendment include: “Prohibiting partisan gerrymandering and prohibiting the use of redistricting plans that favor one political party and disadvantage others.”

Citizens Not Politicians, as usual, presented its own version of the proposed language to describe Issue 1 to voters at the ballot box. There was no mention of gerrymandering in the summary. It was 220 words long, which her attorney Don McTigue said was modeled after language used in the 2015 and 2018 redistricting measures.

The Republican majority of the five-member panel was outraged by the brevity of the summary, as the proposed amendment is 26 pages long.

Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose, chairman of the panel, presented his own three-page, one-space summary. It states that Issue 1 would “remove the constitutional protections against gerrymandering” that passed by large majorities in 2015 and 2018 and “eliminate citizens’ longstanding ability to hold their representatives accountable” when it comes to the institution of trade fair districts.

McTigue objected to what he called loaded language that said the new citizen-run commission would have to “manipulate the boundaries of the state's legislative and congressional districts to favor the two largest political parties in the state of Ohio.”

But the board has doubled in size. Republican Sen. Theresa Gavarone proposed an amendment that changes the word from “manipulate” — defined as “to skillfully, unfairly, or unscrupulously control or influence a person or situation” — to “gerrymander.” To the outcry of the audience, the amendment was adopted.

LaRose read the definition of “gerrymander” in the Compact Oxford English Dictionary, which he said inspired his office's original formulation – “to manipulate the boundaries (of a constituency) to favor one party or class.” He noted that Word was pronounced with a hard “g” in 1812 by Massachusetts Governor Eldridge Gerry in response to the redistricting of the state's Senate districts.

Gavarone argued that “gerrymander” is a fair and accurate word because Issue 1 requires compliance with voters’ “partisan preferences.”

Citizens Not Politicians filed suit, arguing the board adopted “perhaps the most biased, inaccurate, misleading and unconstitutional” voting language in the state’s history.

In an opinion earlier this month, the Supreme Court asked the Board of Elections to make two small changes to its approved language — but left in place the passage addressing Topic 1, which involves gerrymandering.

The court's Republican majority agreed with the Board of Elections' position that the statement that the new Ohio Citizens Redistricting Commission is “committed to gerrymander” is correct – because “gerrymander” itself is a reasonably neutral word.

“What these rules require falls within the meaning of 'gerrymander.' They charge the new commission to draw district lines that give a political advantage to an identifiable group – Republicans in some districts and Democrats in others,” it says Opinion.

Citing six different definitions of the word from five different dictionaries, each with slightly different language, the opinion said: “Taking all definitions into account, an all-purpose definition of 'gerrymander' is drawing district lines to gain a political advantage.” an identifiable group at the expense of neutral criteria such as geographical compactness, political division or communities of interest.”

The justices noted that courts have combined the word with other words to change its meaning, such as “partisan gerrymandering,” “racial gerrymandering,” or “reverse gerrymandering.” The phrase “bipartisan gerrymandering” is “most relevant here,” they wrote.