COLUMBUS: 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 the Democrats desired, they had no way of striking a compromise on boundaries. A final congressional map signed Thursday headed off a threatened 2012 ballot challenge of the new congressional lines by the Ohio Democratic Party.
The map will be in place through the 2020 elections.
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, he produced seven data files exchanged between Republicans and Democrats beginning Nov. 1, including some boundaries Democratic staffers had generated.
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 state lawmaker from Illinois, Rep. Mike Fortner, who won a mapmaking contest a coalition of voter advocates conducted.
“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 the money, records show.
The Innovation Ohio agreement 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 that legal contracts must be approved by the state attorney general, and the 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 because of lagging population growth; the state Legislature includes 99 representatives and 33 senators.
The two maps were created in tandem. Congressional lines are drawn by the Legislature, and legislative lines by the Ohio Apportionment Board.
The 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 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.
