Ohioans Voted for Less Gerrymandering. Now They Are About to Get More Than Ever Before.

In 2018, Ohio Voters overwhelmingly voted to reduce gerrymandering, but that's not what's happening.

In 2018, Ohio voters overwhelmingly backed a constitutional amendment designed to curtail partisan gerrymandering. But as the new congressional redistricting cycle begins, evidence suggests the opposite of what was promised: a process controlled almost entirely by one party, producing maps likely to reinforce, not dismantle, entrenched power.

The 2018 reform, known as Issue 1, passed with nearly 75 percent support. Its purpose was to force the legislature and the redistricting commission to negotiate bipartisan maps, rather than allowing the majority party to unilaterally draw districts favorable to itself.

Under the rules laid out in that reform, the Ohio General Assembly gets the first opportunity to draw congressional districts. But to pass a map that would last a full decade, lawmakers must secure a three-fifths majority, including support from at least half of the minority party. If they fail, control shifts to a seven-member Redistricting Commission, where at least two votes from each party are required to approve a ten-year plan. If even the commission fails, the legislature may adopt a map by a simple majority — but that map would only last four years.

Those safeguards were intended to check extreme partisanship. Instead, the “backup” options and loopholes are now becoming the main path forward.

Republicans currently hold the governor’s office, the auditor’s office, and the secretary of state’s office — all formal members of the commission — as well as majorities in both the Ohio House and Senate. In effect, the party controls every major node in the process. Under that structure, a map passed with only simple majority support becomes far more plausible than a genuinely bipartisan plan.

That is precisely how the 2022 congressional map was adopted. After negotiations failed, a five-to-two party-line vote among commission Republicans pushed the plan forward. That map awarded Republicans ten of Ohio’s fifteen U.S. House seats despite relatively close statewide vote margins.

Now, as the 2025 cycle unfolds, early signals point in the same direction. The Republican-controlled legislature has not moved aggressively to produce a bipartisan proposal, and plans are expected to be finalized in time for the 2026 candidate filing window — leaving minimal time for public input.

Critics of the process warn that the resulting map could pack Democratic voters into fewer districts — essentially conceding heavily Democratic urban areas while distributing the rest across suburban and rural districts with narrower margins.

Even as voters in 2018 sought to insert fairness and accountability into Ohio’s redistricting, the framework they created is now being exploited by the party that currently holds all the levers of power. The result may be a congressional map that departs starkly from the purpose voters intended, reinforcing control by a political machine rather than encouraging competition.

As the commission’s draft is expected by late October, legal challenges may follow. But for many Ohioans, the unfolding process amounts to a bitter irony: the reform enacted to limit partisan maps may instead enable one party to entrench its dominance for years to come.