The Ohio Voters First campaign for Issue 2 has shined some light into how Ohio’s district boundaries are redrawn. In a new graph, the campaign revealed that getting a business added to a district is sometimes as simple as asking for a favor.
Just a day before the approval of Ohio’s new district maps, Tom Whatman, a Boehner staffer, sent an email to Adam Kincaid, a staffer for the National Republican Congressional Committee, and others in charge of redistricting. In the back-and-forth, Whatman asks for a “small carve out” to include a manufacturing business in the congressional district for Rep. Jim Renacci, a Republican who has received support from the business in the past. Before 13 minutes had passed, Kincaid replied to Whatman, securing the change with no questions asked.
“Thanks guys,” Whatman replied. “Very important to someone important to us all.”
The Voters First graph, which mocks the 13-minute exchange with the title “Jim Renacci: The 13 Minute Man,” can be found here. The full emails, which were released by the Ohio Campaign for Accountable Redistricting in a Dec. 2011 report, can be seen online here.
Jim Slagle, who served as manager for the Ohio Campaign for Accountable Redistricting, says the emails are indicative of a redistricting process that is controlled entirely by “political insiders.” Slagle says the interests of the people come second to politics under the current system.
If Issue 2 is approved by voters this November, the redistricting process will be placed in the hands of an independent citizens commission. Under the current system, the state government is tasked with redrawing district boundaries every 10 years. Republicans have controlled the process four out of six times since 1967, which is when the process was first enacted into law. The political party in charge typically redraws districts in a politically favorable manner in a process known as “gerrymandering.”
On Saturday, Rep. Steve Chabot, who represents Cincinnati in the U.S. House of Representatives, told supporters to vote against Issue 2. Chabot is enormously benefiting off the current redistricting process. Cincinnati’s district was redrawn to include Warren County, which has more rural voters that typically vote Republican, and less of Cincinnati, which has more urban voters that typically vote Democrat. The shift to less urban voters is emphasized in this graph by MapGrapher:
