A new legislative proposal calls for Ohio's congressional districts to be drawn with bipartisan input similar to what Ohio voters approved for state legislative boundaries in 2015. Sponsoring Republican State Senator Frank LaRose, the same man who sponsored a previous congressional redistricting bill that was not passed, says it's different this time. Ohio Public Radio's Jo Ingles reports.
LaRose says voters want congressional redistricting. He says his bill gives the state legislature two ways to pass a redistricting plan.
“They could do so with a two thirds majority which takes a lot of members to do that and in most scenarios that would mean both Republicans and Democrats unless one party was just in a really small minority. The other way to do it is with a majority of each party so more than half of the Republicans and more than half of the Democrats.”
LaRose says if lawmakers couldn’t pass maps either way by August, the state district map-drawing commission that was created through a ballot issue in 2013 would draw the congressional map. LaRose says the time is now, since a citizens group has been talking about putting its own redistricting plan before voters.