Tag Archives: independent redistricting commissions

“Ohio GOP passes amendment to make ballot initiatives harder, but voters get to weigh in first”

May 11, 2023, 5:41 amdirect democracyEntrenchment, independent redistricting commissions, Political ResponsivenessTabatha Abu El-Haj

Daily Kos: Following the playbook of several other Republican legislatures, the Ohio legislature is seeking to make the initiative process harder for voters. This is, in my view, the most pernicious iteration of the on-going anti-democratic entrenchment playbook. It is targeted against efforts to address redistricting as well as efforts to secure reproductive rights, including access to abortion. And to make matters worse it has been schedule for an expected low-turnout special election! This move backfired in Kansas in 2022. We can only hope for democracy that it does the same in Ohio.

The constitutional amendment, which needs only a majority to pass, will require a “60% supermajority to pass any future [constitutional] amendments.” It will also make it more difficult to get a measure on the ballot by requiring support in all 88 counties.

Breaking–“Washington Supreme Court declines to redraw political maps, accepts redistricting commission’s work”

December 3, 2021, 10:41 amredistrictingindependent redistricting commissionsTabatha Abu El-Haj

Seattle Times

“The Washington Supreme Court will not exercise its authority to redraw the state’s congressional and legislative district maps, leaving in place the work of the bipartisan redistricting commission.
In a unanimous ruling Friday, the court found the commission had substantially met its legal obligations by voting on a map framework just before the midnight Nov. 15 deadline — despite the panel not revealing its maps publicly prior to the vote and acknowledging that final work on completing them continued after the deadline.”

Washington’s maps may still face a VRA challenge as “[s]ome voting rights activists have said the commission fell short of creating a Central Washington legislative district giving majority Latinos enough clout to elect their favored candidates.”