What comes to mind when you think of the word "gerrymandering"?
Perhaps you think of legal battles? Ethical battles? Oddly drawn voting districts that combine communities together that are miles apart both geographically and ideologically?
We know it's bad, but few of us fully understand how it actually works, how we got here, or how to fix it.
A new book takes readers to the front lines of one of the nation's fiercest redistricting battles right here in Ohio. The book is called Draw The Line in Ohio: How one state’s fight for fair maps explains gerrymandering in America.
The book's co-authors join All Sides to discuss how Ohio's redistricting battle sparked national headlines, political scandals and backroom deals that ultimately expanded partisan power.
The authors argue that with Ohio at the center, gerrymandering is a chief cause of political corruption.
Guests:
- Josh Rultenberg, co-author of Draw the Line in Ohio/journalist
- Rory Riley Topping, co-author of Draw the Line in Ohio/legal analyst
- Catherine Turcer, executive director, Common Cause Ohio
Transcript
This transcript is generated with AI. To ensure its accuracy, review the audio file.
Amy Juravich: Welcome to All Sides with Amy Juravich. What happens when politicians pick their voters instead of voters picking their politicians? The process of picking voters is called gerrymandering, the practice of drawing voting district boundaries to give an unfair advantage to one political party or group. It happens behind closed doors, and it's happened for years in one way or another. But now it seems to be happening in plain sight. And FAIR maps require a definition of the word fair. There isn't just one way to interpret fair. There are dozens. A new book by a journalist and a legal analyst takes readers to the front lines of a fierce redistricting fight in Ohio, a struggle that underscores what they call a chief cause of political corruption. The book is called "Draw the Line in Ohio: How One State's Fight for Fair Maps Explains Gerrymandering in America." And joining us now in the studio to discuss the book are the co-authors, first co-author, Josh Rultenberg. Ruhltenberg, I'm sorry, Ruhlenberg, I switched two letters there, Josh Ruhlaenberg. Josh is a former Washington correspondent, and before that, he reported for Spectrum News One at Ohio's State House as a State House reporter. Welcome to the show, Josh.
Josh Rultenberg: Yeah, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.
Juravich: And also we have Rory Riley Topping, an attorney and on-air legal analyst with experience in all three branches of the federal government. Thanks for joining us today, Rory. Thanks for having me. Josh, let's start with you. So you were a state house reporter here in Ohio from 2020 to 2022. And so you spent a lot of time covering redistricting and the process here, the drama that unfolded in those years. What made you decide that this was good fodder for a book?
Rultenberg: Honestly, this was a conversation Rory and I were having. So, you know, I really didn't know what to expect when I was first covering redistricting here. It was the first time there was this brand new process and I was just assigned. It was just like, hey, go do this and we'll see how long this lasts. It was supposed to be a couple of days, maybe a couple weeks, who knows? And then of course, everything went off the rails. And every time I was on television reporting, my boss at the time was like, you need a legal analyst. To break everything down, because there's so much legal jargon here. So Rory and I were working for the same company at the same time, and we would talk almost every day. And every day we were going through this, we would look at each other and be like, this is crazy. And then we'd look at something else and be, like, that's crazy. And she just kept saying, someone should write a book about this. And then eventually after 10 months, we looked at each and we were like, actually, no, we should be the ones writing a book. You write the book.
Juravich: Yeah, Rory, I wanted to ask you about getting on board for the project. I mean, when one thinks maps and redistricting, I'm not sure that amazing topic for a book comes to mind. Maybe people, if when you think of maps, you think, man, map making, that sounds boring. Tell me about deciding that this drama was a book.
Rory Riley Topping: Well, I think the answer is just in the way that you phrased the question, is the book is about the drama, not just about the maps. So if this had been a standard process and everyone followed the rules and nobody had to sue afterwards because there was no disagreement on whether the maps were fair or not, then you're right. This wouldn't be a book and it would be really boring. But as Josh was just saying in his previous answer, that's not what happened. So our focus was, you know, if you really want people to understand this and not have them think that it's boring, people learn through narratives. And so we knew that, you now, not just the drama that was happening, but you know the drama was happening because of some of the people involved. And so by telling the story as a narrative, you know introducing those characters to people who may not be familiar with them and connecting the dots essentially through all of these steps for the process, I think that's what makes it a More compelling book is if we want people to understand so we can have a better process There's got to be a way to tell it as a story Not just uh, you know a journalistic straight like this happened this happened. This happened But again connecting those dots and doing it in a narrative form
Juravich: Josh, in the introduction, you compare Ohio to California and Texas, citing what happened in those states leading up to the midterms this past year. You said, this is a template set for them by Ohio, the political petri dish where rules of fair play went to die. Now that's a strong statement. How do recent events in the past year, when we think of Texas and California and around the country, connect to what happened in Ohio four years ago?
Rultenberg: Yeah, so I think the one thing that Rory and I learned about this place, specifically not just Ohio, but even Columbus itself, which of course, you know, you've been here for a while, is this is test market USA for everything, not just politics, you know. If a restaurant wants to work somewhere, they put one here first to see, okay, if it'll work here, it'll will work anywhere. And it's also-
Juravich: We're a microcosm of the
Rultenberg: Exactly. Because the demographic is just so closely aligned with the rest of the US. And so we also noticed that, of course, with politics. And what we're noticing right now in real time, especially if you take a look at a state like Missouri, where they're going through redistricting battles right now at the court level, everything that has played out recently in the headlines has been a carbon copy of what happened here in Ohio over those couple of years that we were covering it. Whether it's. Lawmakers that are just defying the courts or not liking what the state Supreme Court says and going to federal court instead, and voters trying to take this process back from the politicians. So we saw all this obviously play out across the country this year, Texas, California, all the way up to Missouri right now, but this all started with Ohio. And I think I'm not going to give the credit to these lawmakers in the other places. I think they look towards Ohio. And they said, oh, they can get away with this in Ohio. We can get a way with this here.
Juravich: Yeah, trying to summarize what happened, both Texas and California initiated a mid-decade redistricting battle for the control of the U.S. House of Representatives. In Texas, it was initiated by President Trump. Basically, he asked Texas to find five more seats for him for the GOP ahead of the midterms. And then California, that was in retaliation to that to adopt new maps to tilt five seats to Democrats. So that's like the short 30-second summary. However, despite... President Trump's mandate for Texas to find those five seats and then California's retaliation. Rory, you write in the book that the path to redistricting doesn't start in Washington. It starts at state houses. Tell me about that, the state power versus what the president says, because it seems like the president has the power now, but it's the state's power, right?
Riley Topping: Well, because it's people in the state houses, in individual states that are the ones actually drawing the maps. And the people in your state house have the power to say, yes, Mr. President, or no, Mr President. And we saw a lot of that play out in Indiana, for example, where there was tremendous pressure from the White House and this administration to engage in mid-decade gerrymandering there. And there was a lot back and forth. I mean, there was lot of drama in that state as well in terms of, are they going to do this? Are they not? The president It ultimately failed, which I think was the right decision by the Indiana state legislature. Because particularly, some of the state senators said, hey, I've met with my constituents. They don't want this. And at the end of the day, the state legislature, that's their job, is to represent their constituents, not to represent a particular party or administration. So I think that what we see is that state legislatures, again, because they're the ones that hold the pens, or I guess the mouse, because it's all computerized. Yeah. You know, they're the ones that are ultimately drawing these maps. So even if you are focused on what's happening on the federal level, that starts at the state house. And I think even just beyond drawing maps, people need to realize that a lot of the everyday issues that impact their lives, those are things that are decided by state government. So things like paving your roads, paying for your schools, just all of the day to stuff. A lot of that is just things that are legislated from the state house, not necessarily at the federal level. And yet because local media has just been decimated in so many places, those things don't get the attention that they need. So people do gravitate, I think, towards these federal narratives, just because that's where more of the media coverage is.
Juravich: Yeah, I know map making is digitized now, but I like to picture a bunch of guys in suits and ties with colored pencils. This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about gerrymandering with the authors of a new book called "Draw the Line in Ohio: How One State's Fight for Fair Maps Explains Gerrymandering in America." And with us for the conversation are the co-authors, Rory Riley Topping and Josh Roltenberg. So, all right, we came this far in the conversation, but I have to back up, Josh. Who's Jerry? Why is it called Jerry-man?
Rultenberg: Yeah, well, it's actually it's funny. It's actually Gary. Yeah Nobody nobody not a lot of people know that so it was former Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gary
Juravich: Spelled that way, though.
Rultenberg: Spelled that way, but with a hard G, because of course back then there was no television to tell you one way or another how the name was actually pronounced. Okay. And it's really funny too, because Seth Meyers and John Mulaney, we talk about this in the book, they talked about this on live television, or on the tape show, on Seth Meyer's show, that John Mulany came from Massachusetts and his grandmother was saying, make sure that Seth knows that it's a hard g for gerrymandering, if you will. But this goes back to 1812. You know, this is where this practice gets the credit for starting all of this. Even though we saw an earlier example back in the 1700s down in North Carolina. But in 1812, you had former Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry, he signed a map that had a bunch of weird shapes on it and one famously looked like a salamander. And they said, better call it a Garymander. But of course, now today we call it.
Juravich: A gerrymander. Hmm, all right. I'm gonna still call it a gerrymandered. Yeah, go for it. Yeah, but all right, gerry gerry. Thank you, Jerry. Now Rory, a further definition, so there is a distinction. Define redistricting versus gerrymandering for us.
Riley Topping: Sure. So redistricting is the neutral practice of deciding the boundaries and lines for electoral districts. And when I say neutral, it's every state has slightly different criteria for how those lines are to be drawn, but it's following that criteria in a way where you aren't trying to guarantee a particular partisan outcome. It shifts to gerrymandering when you are doing that and you are deliberately trying to influence or manipulate the outcome. For either a particular candidate or a particular party. That's the process that we know as gerrymandering or gerrymandering as it may be. Yes.
Juravich: All right, so jumping back to this playing out around the country and in Ohio, you call this in the book a full-fledged cheating scandal that no one's paying attention to. Lawsuits are filed, but for the most part, no one is paying attention. Eventually, it all fades away to become a distant memory. Josh, why does the average person not know much about this?
Rultenberg: Wow, how much time do we have? I mean, it's really shocking. Honestly, I was just having a conversation with a voting rights advocate here in Ohio. Just how shocking it is that a lot of people just don't know basic civic education. And I think that's really where it starts. These are things that sometimes we learn in grade school, and maybe that's the one and only mention of it. But other than that, I mean as you said at the outlet of this interview, I mean, drawing maps is boring, right? Who cares about this if you don't? No offense, yeah. No, but I mean it's just, unless you truly break down the impact of what it is, that it's not just about drawing maps, that it is really about lawmakers choosing their voters and not the other way around and suppressing your rights and making sure that they can control what laws are passed even if they don't represent you. I mean that's the biggest problem that we have right now. So the two reasons that we wrote this book are to educate people, and then also have them have their own call to action. Now what that call to actually looks like depends on the individual, whether it's simply just having conversations like this to say, hey, what is redistricting? What is gerrymandering? It could be voting in elections that nobody talks about. Of course, we talk about presidential elections and midterms, but you need to go to your local town hall, your school board, et cetera, your state house. It could be testifying at your state house. There's bills that come up every single day, and you need to go ahead and have your voice heard. And then if you're feeling really bullish about this, you can go run for public office yourself to try to fix problems like gerrymandering from the inside.
Juravich: Now, you do a good job in the book, the two of you, of making pop culture and sports references to explain things, you know, just kind of, it brings it more home for people rather than just talking about maps. So you say that the party in charge sets the rules for the next election. And so the issue compounds over time. So you offer an example of that. Imagine if Michigan beat Ohio State and then got to rewrite some of the rules for next year's game, right? So, Josh, I mean... That would cause such outrage, especially here in Columbus. You don't say. Yeah, a little bit. But the political party, they do it, and there's nothing. No public reaction. Is that your point you're trying to make? Absolutely.
Rultenberg: Absolutely. Look, the whole reason we wrote this book for the way that we did is because we know that the politically engaged person is going to pay attention to this issue. They know what gerrymandering is, but the non-politically engaged does not. And we have found that there are a lot of people that just simply don't know about this. So instead of just writing a boring book about inside baseball when it comes to government, it's like, how do we get people actually involved? And the one thing Rory and I knew is people care about two things really in this country. They care about sports and they care about celebrities. Right? And so if we cared about a Michigan sign stealing, cheating scandal, if we care about, you know, Vanderpump rules and the cheating scandal that was there, you know we say if you care about a sports cheating scandal you care about a celebrity cheating scandal. You should care about this because it weighs a lot more. And this is really how we broke it down.
Juravich: Yeah, and you also mention people are sometimes even hard pressed to know who their state representative is or who their State Senator is. They might know their Congress person, they might know the U.S. Senator, but it's the local politicians who for some reason are not celebrities and maybe they should be.
Rultenberg: Absolutely, because I think most people just pay attention to what happens in Washington, thinking that if problems are or are not solved there, that that's what defines their lives. But it's not, it's the closer to your backyard is what affects you the most, in your school board, in your town, in your city, at your state house. Those are the things that matter more than what is or ultimately what is not happening in Washington.
Juravich: Rory, after the break, we're going to break down what happened in 2022. We'll talk more about the Ohio Redistricting Commission. But I wanted to talk before we break about some of the interviews that you both did for this book, the Ohio redistricting commission, which we'll get into has a bunch of members on it. Did the commission members all respond to interview requests for the book, Rory?
Riley Topping: Um, well, most of them responded in some way, but sometimes that answer was, you know, thanks, but no, thanks. So, um, obviously one of the big names throughout this process was then Senate president, Matt Huffman. We had corresponded with his communications director. Um, and he said, well you know, the Senator has already made so many public statements and they're all on, on the record. And that was a blog created by the State Senate. Through state Senate majority, I should say, and Huffman specifically to share what they refer to as the news, the views excludes. And that was a little bit frustrating because obviously we had direct questions that we wanted to ask. There were things that I think had gone on behind the scenes that we want to ask about. And it was a bit disappointing because All of the Democrats involved in this process said, yeah, we're happy to talk to you. No problem. And we spoke to all of them, even the ones that had only been involved, for a small portion of the process. Getting in touch with the Republicans on the commission was much more difficult. Josh can tell you, he had spoke to former House Speaker Bob Cupp. They had corresponded regularly when he was a State House reporter. Said, hey, I'd like to speak to you because I'm thinking about writing a book about this. And he never answered his phone calls again. So, you know, I just think it's important. You know, one of the things I tie this to is I say all the time, kind of my mantra that I live by is that any given time, I should be able to explain what I'm doing and why I'm going it. And if I can't do those things, like that's like an indicator to me that maybe something that's going on here isn't in line with my values. It's not true to who I really am. And the fact that some of the Republicans on the Ohio Redistricting Commission were just simply unwilling to talk about what they were doing and why they were doing it, I do wonder if on some level they are grappling with their inner conscience.
Juravich: Well, Josh, I mean, when you were covering this in actually 2022, as it happened the day to day, you were down there, the room that they all met in, they called the bunker, you would catch them as they came in and out the doors, they would answer your questions then like Huffman and Cup talked.
Rultenberg: Right, so it was tricky. You know, they'd have these meetings in front of everybody, but it's not like there was scheduled press conferences afterwards. I was one person down there trying to get as many of them as possible, but a lot of them would just simply walk out of the room because they wanted to walk out. But typically it would be the co-chairs of the commission, one Democrat, one Republican that would hang around. And then the others, if you got your interviews done fast, you can get to one or the other, they would talk. You know, I do want to point out as far as what Rory was saying with those that did not want to or did not respond, I can tell you specifically I had conversations with the Secretary of State himself behind the scenes, Frank LaRose, and also his team at first. Frank had passed me on to his team saying I'd be interested in doing this. And then for some reason, his press secretary just killed the interview out of nowhere as one was scheduled. And we basically got no answer as to why that was. Auditor Faber never responded at all. Governor Mike DeWine, we did not interview him specifically but his press secretary, Dan Tierney, we did speak to for hours. So at least we got that perspective. And from there, yeah, Bob Cupp, I talked to on the phone. Hey, how are you? Right in this book, would you like to talk about this? And he's like, I'll get back to you. And then I tried calling him again and again and he just never picked up the phone, Um, but. Yeah, they would talk sometimes, especially Matt Huffman in person, he would talk. And he was very proud of exactly what it is they were doing and I know we'll get into it. But as far as anything else is concerned, they were like, no, what we've said on the record speaks for itself.
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about gerrymandering and how Ohio's map making process over the past decade unfolded. And our guests have written a new book called "Draw the Line in Ohio." And our guest, the co-authors are staying with us. Coming up, we'll talk about independent map makers, a bait and switch, and the game of maps as it continues. That's when All Sighs continues on 89.7 NPR News.
You're listening to All Sides, I'm your host Amy Juravich. What comes to mind when you think of the word gerrymandering? Perhaps you think legal battles, ethical battles, oddly drawn voting districts that combine communities together that are miles apart, both geographically and ideologically. We know it's bad, but few of us fully understand how it actually works, how we got here, or how to fix it. A new book takes readers to the front lines of one of the nation's fiercest Districting Battles in Ohio. The book is called "Draw the Line in Ohio, how one state's fight for fair maps explains gerrymandering in America." The book's co-authors join us today to discuss how Ohio's redistricting battle sparked national headlines, political scandals, and backroom deals that ultimately expanded partisan power. And the authors argue that with Ohio at the center, gerrymander is the chief cause of political corruption. Still with us to discuss this are the co-authors of the book. We have Rory Riley Topping, an attorney and on-air legal analyst with experience in all three branches of the federal government. Thanks again for being here, Rory. Thanks for having me. And also we have Josh Rultenberg. Josh is a former Washington correspondent and before that he reported for Spectrum News 1 as an Ohio State House reporter. Thanks for being her, Josh.
Rultenberg: Of course, thanks, Amy.
Juravich: All right, so we can't possibly go step by step through this map-making fight that's at the center of your book. It would take hours. I invite everyone to read the book because the narrative is all there. But what I wanted to briefly mention is that before voters passed a constitutional amendment in 2015, aimed to make the redistricting process less partisan and more transparent. That was the goal. And then somehow that didn't happen. So... Can you basically summarize what the Ohio Redistricting Commission, which was created in 2015, what was it supposed to do?
Rultenberg: So they were supposed to do a couple of different things. I mean, just to put it in plain language, they were suppose to ungerrymander the state legislature. Which, you know, that's one sentence, but that's a very powerful sentence. When you have a bunch of people that are serving in state government that don't deserve to, and you're on the same team, and you have to go to them, and have to say, hey, I know we're friends, I now we're pals, but I've got to kick you out of government because your seat was unearned. That's something that's not really that practical and we found that out the hard way. But what they really had to do was they had to make sure that the shapes of these districts looked like real shapes and not salamanders or a snake on the lake as we have up in Toledo and Cleveland with a congressional map for Marcy Captor. You wanted to make that they were contiguous, that you could draw one straight line from one end to the other. You wanted keep communities together that think alike. Whether you're in an urban area or a rural area, we tend to think. Like the neighbors that we live next to. And it's only when you take an urban area and you group them in with a rural area or you take two different urban areas and bring them together or two different rural areas that all of a sudden it's like, wait a minute, we don't have the same priorities. Why are we having the same representation? And then you realize it's on purpose and it's to make sure that one party has an advantage over the other. It was not supposed to be this way.
Juravich: I wanted to talk for a minute Rory about independent map makers who were brought in to draw the maps. And this seems like a good idea, seems like you're good compromise having an independent map maker. Tell me like who is an independent map maker? How does one get that job?
Riley Topping: So the origins of the independent mapmakers that were brought in in Ohio is they're more often called special masters. And really starting in the 1970s in California, when redistricting disputes were getting litigated, judges were saying, we don't have the ability to draw maps. We obviously can't trust these self-interested politicians to draw a maps. Could we bring in some sort of neutral party? So. Brought in what is called a special master and that's somebody who's appointed by the court to draw the map. These people are often professors, statisticians, retired judges, people who understand the system but don't necessarily have stakes in the outcome, so more likely to be independent. Now they're called independent map makers in the Ohio situation because the Ohio state constitution was very explicit that the Ohio State Supreme Court did not have the authority to draw those maps. They couldn't appoint a special master. So we use the phrase special master when the independent map maker is specifically appointed by the court. Here in a decision, the court said, the Ohio redistricting commission should use an independent mapmaker. And attorney general Yost had written a memo in response to that saying, the quote was, you should treat this with the deference to which one would give their spouse. And so even though the court couldn't make them use the independent map makers, I think at that point in the process, there was enough frustration, you know, it's the whole definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. So what could they do to try to change the process and maybe get a different result that was using the independent mat makers? Here we had Michael McDonald from the state of Florida, he's a professor, and Doug Johnson from Arizona. Both had been involved in map making. Across the country and the two of them had worked together before, so when they were brought into the process, you know, obviously there was some hope that this could change things, but as we saw, things aren't always what they seem.
Juravich: And what Rory is referring to is maps in Ohio during this time period that we're talking about were rejected seven different times by the Supreme Court. I mean, I have that number, right? Like five with the state maps, two with the congressional maps, something like that. But it was seven times that the court sent the maps back and said, no, you're doing it wrong. Is that, do I have it correct? 100%. Yeah. And I also read, Josh, in your bio, that your tweets during all of this drama of the 2022 map-making process as a reporter for the State House News, like you worked at the State House, he became the definitive index and timeline for future court cases and historical records. So I guess that archive was handy in writing a book too.
Rultenberg: Yeah, I had a little time on my hands. But no, first off, I had no idea until Rory and I were going through the evidence. And it was like, wait a minute, why is my name here? Like, are my taxes in line here? I don't know. I was like oh, Maureen O'Connor knows who I am. I having never met her before. But yeah, no, I obviously I wanted the people at home that weren't there that were following me along on social media to know what was going on. And I was very meticulous about it. And there was a lot to document. Because again, this should have been a very boring process. There should not be a book. I should not talking to you. But there was, it was a non-boring process and we saw it play out.
Juravich: And Rory said it was the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again, right? And in the book, you liken it to the movie Groundhog Day. I mean, tell me about that. So are you talking about like having maps rejected seven times as that Groundhog day?
Rultenberg: Well, first off, instead of saying that we said that, the Ohio Supreme Court said that. Oh, yeah. In one of their decisions, they literally said this feels like Groundhog Day. Yeah. So, you know, we will take it from them.
Juravich: So, Maureen O'Connor's a fan of Bill Murray. All right, got it. I think it was Sharon Kennedy, who actually- Sharon Kennedy. Yeah. Oh, fascinating. It was Sharon, the now Chief Justice. Now Chief Justice, all right. Sorry.
Rultenberg: But yeah, no, I mean, it felt like that though. I mean being the reporter that showed up every day, it was lather, rinse, repeat. It was, we would have these hearings, these commission hearings. They would adopt maps they shouldn't be adopting. We knew they were gonna get rejected, they would. The court would say, do this again. And then instead of just complying with the court's order, the Republicans on the Ohio Redistricting Commission just said, no we're gonna continue to go down this road. We're going to delay as long as we can. So that ultimately we get the result we want, and of course they did.
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about gerrymandering with the authors of a new book called "Draw the Line in Ohio." And with us for the conversation are the co-authors, Josh Roltenberg and Rory Riley Topping. I wanted to back up for a second because in the list of people that you interviewed, and Peter, you should definitely read the book to learn more about this, but you interviewed former Supreme Court Justice Maureen O'Connor, who's a major figure in all of this. You talked to her. You also talked to, current U.S. Senator John Huston. But one thing you noted in the book is that Democrats are not innocent in all of this, right? I mean, it sounds like we're talking about the Republicans a lot here, but you can look at California as an example. Democrats are in this and in this, but also in Ohio in 2009, and we're going back to Democrat Ted Strickland was governor, and there was a move to set some rules about redistricting, and it did not happen at that time whenever we had Governor Stricklin. And when you talk to John Husted, he said that the Democrats really had a chance to do something and they didn't. So Rory, what should they have done rules-wise at the time? What did they have a chance to do? Write some rules.
Riley Topping: Yeah, so John Hughes said is right. A lot of the conversation centers around the 2015 and 2018 amendments, but I think it's important to remember that advocates were fighting for reform long before that. They weren't successful in any way until 2015, but there were a number of ballot initiatives and failed attempts at ballot initiatives before that, So, around that time, starting around 2005... There was really a big push to to reform this process. And again, try to make it more transparent, try to make more bipartisan. There was talk of independent commissions. How do we get the politicians out of this? And, you know, we see in looking at that history is that the party in power is generally opposed to reform and the party who's out of power is generally in favor of it. And, um, you now, one of the other interviews that we did, um was Joan Lawrence, who, you know, is in her 90s and has seen. These fights for redistricting reform for decades. That was her observation. It's very much in line with the quotation you were referencing from John Hughes said, talking about that time period in 2009 specifically. Yeah, Democrats controlled the state house and had the opportunity to pass some of these good government reforms that they were talking about. But... There's going to be another census in 2010. They were feeling really good about their chances to take over some of the statewide offices that was on what was then called the apportionment board. It's now called the Ohio redistricting commission and they thought, well, we can control the process and if we can control process, well we can get better maps, we can lock ourselves in and, and then, you know, we'll, we'll do a bigger reform that we wouldn't be able to do otherwise. And obviously that didn't happen. So I think that You know, that's important to point out, not just in Ohio. I know you referenced California and currently as well, but when we back up and look at the U.S. Congress, I mean, people forget, Democrats controlled the U S Congress for 40 years, you know, from the 1950s until the Gingrich revolution in 1994. And so a lot of the, backlash that we see on redistricting came from, you know, a lot of Republicans got really pissed that they were like, you know, prevented from being in power for 40 years. And it wasn't because, you know, Democrats were morally superior across the country for 40 years. It was because they did a lot of gerrymandering and it was harder to crawl them on it because like we were saying, this was back at that point in time, you know, men in a room in suits with colored pencils, pencils that wasn't computerized and all that. That's where the colored pencils came from. Yes. Okay. So I think that that's an important part of the conversation. So, you know, we talk a lot about how things shifted in 2010. You know, obviously Republicans had Red Map, the redistricting majority project at that time, which kind of set the stage for this process that we're talking about, as well as things that were going on across the country. But again, people forget part of reason that Republicans got so bullish on public on gerrymandering at that point. Was because of that history starting in the 1950s, where they were completely locked out of power in large part due to gerrymandering.
Juravich: Everything old is new again. We are going to talk about this is all sides on 89 7 NPR news. We're talking about the new book, "Draw the Line in Ohio," and we're going to continue our conversation by discussing changing the process, perhaps removing lawmakers from it altogether. That's when all sides continues on 89 seven NPR News.
You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. The word gerrymandering has become a dirty word in American politics, but the method of map making is still rampant across the country. A new book takes readers to the front lines of one of the nation's fiercest redistricting battles in Ohio. The book is called "Draw the Line in Ohio, how one state's fight for fair maps explains gerrymandering in America." And the book's co-authors are with us today to discuss how Ohio's redistricting battle sparked national headlines, political scandals. And backroom deals that ultimately expanded partisan power. The book also argues that the people can still have the power to speak up, to vote, to defend democracy. Still with us is co-author Rory Riley Topping, an attorney and on-air legal analyst. Thanks for joining us, Rory. Thanks for having me. And also with us, is Josh Roltenberg. Former Washington correspondent and former reporter of Spectrum News 1 as Ohio's state house reporter. Thanks for being here, Josh. Thanks, Amy. And joining us now is someone who understands the tools to use to defend democracy. She's featured in several chapters in the book as someone who lived through the Ohio fight for fair maps and continues that work today. Catherine Turcer is the Executive Director of Common Cause Ohio. Catherine, welcome to All Sides.
Catherine Turcer: I'm glad to be here, although it's a little traumatic going back and hearing all these things that happened. I can imagine.
Juravich: Yes. You had a lot of late nights, I'm sure. So just for our listeners, Common Cause Ohio works to strengthen public participation in our democracy and ensure that public officials and public institutions are accountable and responsive to citizens. All right, Catherine, you were quoted in the book several times, but one of the quotes stands out to me, and it's this, I want to read it. You know, these folks are drunk on power. What do you do with drunks? You take away their keys. And we have the ability to, and we have to take away their ability to draw these maps. All right, so do you still agree with that quote? Is it possible to take way the keys? Oh, absolutely.
Turcer: Absolutely, I agree with that quote. One of the things that is very clear to me is that we have had this long problem with the manipulation of district lines, and the only way to fix it is to actually take those who are impacted, take those who actually have a conflict of interest to take away their ability to do map making. And I think it's important to realize, like, when we think about gerrymandering, It's you know, it's based on a political cartoon from 1812. Elbridge Gerry was the vice president. He signed the Declaration of Independence. But when push came to shove, he decided that he would draw a district and approve a district that looked like a salamander because it benefited his political party. So we have been fighting gerrymandering as voters since 1812, and it's been a long fight, but the best way to do this, So best way to actually get. District lines that are fair, that are compact, that are representative, is to take the elected officials out of the equation.
Juravich: Now, we'll talk about ways we've tried to do that, right? But is that something that the federal government needs to do, or each state individually has to take their each individual state's lawmakers out of the equation?
Turcer: So the thing that is interesting is that when it comes to the mapmaking, each state does it slightly differently. Now, the federal government, say Congress got together and they said, hey, let's pass, they could pass some parameters. They could provide some clear metrics and they could actually encourage, encourage mapmaking that mapmakers that are not elected officials. I think the thing about this, this gets into like, what are the powers of the states? What's the power of the federal government? But the federal Government could have some power here, and it is a national problem. Like clearly this past year was just crazy to watch the back and forth of map making and like, well, if we play around with this statistic, you know, acting as if Voters are pawns, and voters are not pawns. So in my mind, it makes sense to have both a federal solution
Juravich: and a state solution. So you tried to take the keys away from Ohio lawmakers with issue one on the ballot in 2024. It was called the Citizens Not Politicians Amendment. It did not pass. We're not gonna get into all the reasons it failed right now because that's a whole nother show. But the bottom line is, is that it would have created a 15-member independent commission, and that did not happen. And the same commission layout, that was still in the works in 2022, we still have now. That's what's still here. So does that make you worry when you think of the 2030 census and the redraw that we will do in 2031? Like, what do you think, Catherine?
Turcer: So one of the things, when I look back and I think about my work on redistricting, and I started in the late 90s, when we worked to pass first at the state house so that it would be on the ballot in 2015, when that passed in 2015 I was like, okay, we have a clear prohibition against gerrymandering with a specific metric for defining it. We have clear rules about transparent map making. This is a real opportunity to improve the quality of democracy, the quality of representation at the state house for decades to come. So you felt optimistic in 2015. And so naive. I think the thing that's really hard is that voters can and did, more than 70% of voters, can and put anti-jerrymandering language into the Ohio Constitution. Mm-hmm, but it's not enough
Juravich: It's not enough.
Turcer: Involved. That's what you learned from that, right? That's that's what we all learned from. That I think what's really sad is it was a lesson that taught voters not to actually trust those that they chose to stand for.
Juravich: And to the state house. Josh or Rory, to bring you back into the conversation here, can you give me ideas of some tools some other states have used that could be tried in Ohio, something that has worked?
Riley Topping: Yeah, so one of the examples is from the state up north. Michigan had a reform a few years ago where they used an independent redistricting commission. And the format was a little bit different than what was on the ballot in Ohio in 2024. But same idea of just taking the politicians out of the process, using a commission of citizens to do this. And that's worked really well. I mean, I think it's important to note that it's not perfect. You know, there's still been some litigation around it, but it's been much, much less, and these disputes have been resolved much more quickly. There's none of this ignoring the courts. And so we have seen the independent redistricting commissions can be a valid way to do this. Now, the caveat I would add to that is, you know, the state to really Pioneer Independent Redistricting Commissions. California. And then we saw this year that when they wanted to get engaged on the federal level, that they were willing to bypass their independent redistricting commission so that they could gerrymander in favor of Democrats. So I think that independent redistributing commissions are certainly an improvement. But to Katherine's point, politicians are adaptable. And so every time you get new rules, they kind of learn how to circumvent them. So we have to continue the conversation. It can't just be about you know, these independent redistricting commissions that we have seen in other states, but can they be overwritten through ballot initiatives and things like that? Should that be something that's on the table? And so again, I would just say that we want to get the politicians out of the process, but that question alone is not enough. If we truly want to eliminate gerrymandering, we have to make sure that there's some enforceability and we can't just override the independent commissions whenever it's politically convenient for us to do so.
Juravich: Josh, do you have anything you want to add? Because you were on the front lines watching, basically, the system that the voters voted for be manipulated.
Rultenberg: Yeah, so first I like to give Catherine a bit more grace than she gives herself right now, because when you talk about the 2024 ballot initiative that people will label quote unquote failed, I don't think it failed because it failed. I think what we saw, and Catherine can attest to this, that the Ohio Ballot Board manipulated the language. Catherine and other organizations like the one she runs have done such a great job to educate people that gerrymandering is bad, right? And so when you see on your ballot, Something that says we are going to have to require gerrymandering. Your brain says no, I can't vote for that.
Juravich: The ballot board added that language in, is what you're saying. What Catherine's team wrote didn't have that word in it. But back to what we were talking about much earlier about people and voters not understanding gerrymandering, people don't know what the ballot board is.
Rultenberg: Of course, and we, and Jen Miller, League of Women Voters Executive Director, spells that out in very colorful language. Don't swear, yes. In colorful language, she laid that out. But that's, yeah, that's part of the problem right now. So we need to increase civic education in this country so that things like that don't happen. But yeah, I mean, they didn't know the difference between what was on the ballot versus what was the actual amendment. And so I don't think that the amendment failed because you saw voters come out. And say, we voted to end gerrymandering. And then they were asked, well, did you vote yes or did you go no? And they're like, well, yeah, of course we voted no. And they were like, what do you mean? And he was like, what do mean, what you mean. And they, and then they're were like I thought this was a serious document. What do you, we just voted against our own self interest. And the reason we know that this was a strategy is because the current chair of the Ohio Republican party said out loud confusion wasn't such a bad strategy, was it?
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about gerrymandering with the authors of a new book called "Draw the Line in Ohio." And the co-authors are with us, Josh Roltenberg and Rory Riley Topping. Also with us is Catherine Tercer, Executive Director of Common Cause, Ohio. And Catherine, there's another quote in the book I wanted to ask you about. This one's not your quote, but it says, even when against seemingly insurmountable odds, the most powerful person in any state isn't one of its legislative leaders. It's the voters when they speak up and use every tool available to defend democracy. So have you used all your tools?
Turcer: Well, clearly, we need to come up with new tools, and we need to find ways to push back against crazy manipulation. Now, clearly there's the manipulation of the district lines. There's the manipulation of our access to that check on the state legislature, meaning the ability to collect signatures and put things directly before voters. That goes back to your ballot board thing. I think the thing that is really clear is that I'm going to go back to the drunk on, they're drunk on power and they will do anything. And it does mean that we collectively, we collectively are more powerful. Voters need to come together and actually work together to create a democracy that is functional, that works for us so that we get good representation. And that's an incredible amount of work. But together we are more powerful, and I believe we're on that path, but boy, do politicians wanna hold onto any bit of power they have, and they are willing to abuse the voters to do that.
Juravich: Now, 2024, Citizens Not Politicians Amendment did not pass. Are you or anyone in this state planning to try again? A constitutional amendment's hard. Are you planning to again?
Turcer: So one of the things I always wanna make super clear is when we do a ballot measure, it is an incredibly labor-intensive, meaning just imagine trying to collect signatures and having conversations about gerrymandering and all of that signature collection isn't just time, it's money, you need as many people to be on the same page as possible, and you need to be prepared for a lot of dirty tricks. And I do think there's some different ideas out there about things that people could do to, for example, change the ballot board. We had a constitutional amendment, you know, to change the board before, because it used to, you know ballot language was just up to the secretary of state at one point. So we could do that kind of reform. I also think, how can I put this? We shouldn't be thinking about signature collection today. We should be thinking about building power, getting folks ready. And getting prepared for another election cycle. Because it is very clear that elected officials, our state legislators, the governor and auditor, secretary of state, they are not going to step away from the power that they have. And so we're going to have to do it. But it is going to take some time. And we've learned from other efforts. I think it's important to realize the first effort to address gerrymandering was in 1981. One. We had a citizen initiative in 1981 and then 2005 and then 2012 and then 2024. And I'm bringing these up not to depress us but to just have a sense that people who want fairness, who believe in a democracy that works for all of us, we just keep going. And we're gonna keep going until we actually fix this because we all deserve to have a vote that matters.
Juravich: Well, and I think that leads me to, we only have two minutes left, so this will be the last question, but it leads me to that civics education that we talked about. Like, is that the new piece? Are you gonna try to teach people how redistricting works? What gerrymandering is? What the ballot board is? Do people need to know more?
Turcer: So absolutely, you know, I always think it's, we need to go back to the simple. The manipulation of district lines is the manipulation of elections. The manipulation of elections is the manipulation of public policy that impacts you.
Juravich: Every single day, but how do you stop someone from just throwing their hands up and saying we tried we couldn't do it Why bother I think it's one of the reasons we need to read.
Turcer: And then move forward, because it is easy not to just get angry, but to have a sense that the powers that be have more power than we do. And that is not correct. And we just need to build a strong campaign where we're ready to fight and go to the ballot again.
Juravich: Well, I want to thank everyone who's joined me today. We are out of time, but I want to thank the co-authors of the book we've been talking about this hour. It is called "Draw the Line in Ohio: How One State's Fight for Fair Maps Explains Gerrymandering in America." And Josh Rolgenberg, thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you, Amy. And thank you to Rory Riley Topping. Thanks, Rory. Thank you. And also thank you to Catherine Turcer, Executive Director of Common Cause Ohio. Thanks for joining us, Catherine. And this has been All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. I'm Amy Juravich. Thanks for joining us.