The county lines for the House of Representatives and the Ohio Senate are not the only ones to be redrawn in 2022.
Eleven elected members of the Ohio State Board of Education are also getting new boundaries, and public school advocates say those lines were designed to marginalize voices that are not conservative.
“I’d like to say I was surprised, but I’m not,” said Ohio Teachers Federation President Melissa Cropper. “This is just another example of how the Republican Party is using its political power to manipulate the system to silence the voices of people who disagree with them.”
But the office of Governor Mike Devine, who drew the county, said they had done their best to “create a map without change, given that the puzzle pieces have changed radically.”
And everyone – including the state House, Senate and school councils – is in the air again as the Ohio Redistribution Commission tries to draw up its third set of legislative maps.
How is the school board district
Ohio legislative maps are designed to fit together. Each state Senate constituency includes three seats in the House of Representatives. And the non-partisan state council of educational districts unites three senatorial districts.
The rules for drawing a chair of the State Council are simple:
- The three counties of the Senate must touch (be adjacent).
- Each school board district “should be as compact as possible”.
- Some areas should “consist primarily of rural areas” and some should cover predominantly urban areas.
New lines, old problems
Ohio State Education President Scott DiMavro called DeWain’s first map a “signal” for conservative voters and pointed to District 5 as a great example.
The current venue, which covers Medina, Wayne, Stark and part of the Summit counties, is currently represented by a registered Democrat named Christina Collins.
The new district did not include the district of Medina. It descended further south and passed through Franklin County all the way to the Union.
“I was devastated to learn that I was the only elected member who lost all of my territory and county, as well as all of the voters in northeast Ohio who supported my campaign,” Collins said. wrote on Twitter.
Although the State Board of Education’s race is non-partisan, Collins said she ran as a Democrat and sought the approval of the county party.
Her new district is noticeably more republican.
Much of it “overwhelmingly voted for the state board candidates …” Collins said. “Distance creates its own problems, given that I seek to be involved in the counties I represent, but I also question my philosophical appeal as a representative of the political preferences of this territory.”
Less conservative council members Antoinette Miranda, Michelle Newman and Meryl Johnson also turned out to be representatives of different constituencies.
“I think you should always be careful not to attribute motives,” DiMavra said when asked why these particular board members saw the biggest changes within their borders.
But he said it was hard to ignore the fact that all four women were “supporters of the original racial justice movement and more resilient to going back.”
Resolution 20 was a controversial document passed by the state government weeks after the assassination of George Floyd by a Minnesota police officer.
It outlined how Ohio’s colored children are doing worse than white students, and encouraged schools to test for bias in their curricula, textbooks, hiring practices, and disciplinary policies.
Conservative parents and politicians pounced on the document, and it quickly became a lightning rod in the debate over how children learn about race.
The council repealed resolution 20 in October and replaced it with doctrines condemning language that “seeks to share”. A few weeks later DeWine requested the resignation of only two appointed board members who voted against the repeal.
“I think it’s important to see these connections and ask questions,” DiMavra said.
Cropper went even further and said the ousting of the Johnson area of Cleveland “would dilute the voices of colored children with low socioeconomic status”.
DeWine spokesman Dan Tearney said the governor’s office followed the protocol. The changes stemmed from new constitutional requirements for keeping counties, cities and other municipalities together.
“We have radically different pieces of the puzzle …” he said. “The governor tried to keep the districts as similar as they are now, and also worked on new lines.”
What happens next
The Ohio Supreme Court has given a seven-member conversion commission by midnight on Thursday to form new constituencies for the State House and Senate.
The borders will be their third attempt to hold features that withstand constitutional scrutiny.
Tearney said it was too early to speculate on how the process would affect school board districts, but he acknowledged that there was “uncertainty” in the process.
As for Collins, she will not be re-elected until 2024. This means that it will represent District 5 – regardless of its configuration – for another two years.
“I will continue to advocate a non-partisan approach to what is best for children, no matter what territory I am assigned to represent,” Collins said. But she hopes the new map “will allow me to return to the representation of my counties.”
Anna Staver is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Inquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations in Ohio.