Paul Miller presents his congressional map proposal to the Ohio Redistricting Commission in a 2022 meeting. Congressional redistricting is back in Ohio after bipartisan agreement didn’t happen the last time around. (Photo by Susan Tebben, Ohio Capital Journal.)
With the introduction of a Democratic-proposed map and the announcement of a bipartisan committee on the subject, Ohio lawmakers have officially begun the process of congressional redistricting. So what happens now?
Ohio is restarting its congressional redistricting process, not because of any special push from leadership or even a response to a spontaneous redraw.
Ohio is making a new congressional map because they are legally bound to, as a consequence of a lack of bipartisan agreement in 2022, the last time congressional maps were adopted in the state.
To have maps for the 2026 election, the legislature is starting again.
How redistricting works
Redistricting has been a topic of conversation in Ohio for many years. In 2020, the U.S. Census conducted its official population survey, a landmark time when redistricting happens across the country.
The number of districts that are drawn for both state legislative districts and congressional ones are based on the population shifts recorded in the census conducted every 10 years.
The political leanings of those districts is in theory supposed to come from the voting trends of the state and country.
The GOP-created congressional districts approved by the Ohio Redistricting Commission on March 2, 2022.
Congressional district mapmakers often look to the most recent presidential elections for help in how those districts should be shaped.
Republicans currently control 10 of 15 of Ohio’s U.S. Congressional district seats, or 66%. Ohio voted for President Trump in 2024 with 55% of the vote.
The Republican majority that leads the legislature has argued that the 66% Republican majority that was adopted in the March 2022 congressional map represents the political makeup of the state.
Amid a national gerrymandering frenzy, prominent Republicans have called for the party to take two or three more seats. Meanwhile, Ohio Democrats have proposed a map that would lean eight seats Republican to seven seats Democratic, a 53-47 split.
The Princeton Gerrymandering Project, a national analysis of all redistricting efforts, gave the current 10-5 split map an overall “D” grade, with its lowest marks given in partisan fairness.
Democrats unsurprisingly disagreed that the map aligned with the views of the voters, and have maintained that disagreement through their new map proposal introduced on Tuesday.
What the Ohio Constitution says
The district redrawing process is laid out in an amendment to the Ohio Constitution passed by voters in 2018 with nearly 75% support, which spells out not only deadlines for the process, but also how the maps should look once the lines are drawn.
The drawing of congressional districts and legislative districts has certain standards, but some “mandatory standards” for statehouse districts are “general standards” for congressional districts, according to a legislative brief on the process.
For congressional districts, the general standards for a map include contiguity, or districts with “a single, unbroken shape, with no ‘islands’ of territory that do not touch the rest of the district.”
The districts should also be compact and keep counties, townships and municipal corporations whole as much as possible.
“Splitting a political subdivision is necessary when, for example, its population exceeds the ideal district population,” the Legislative Service Commission wrote in its analysis of the redistricting process.
Next steps and deadlines
A joint committee on congressional redistricting has announced they will meet for the first time on Sept. 22. A time and location has not been announced by legislative leadership.
The legislature has until Sept. 30 to approve a congressional map following the constitutional rules. That map must have approval of three-fifths of both chambers of the legislature, including at least half the Democrats.
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During consideration of the map proposals by the legislature, proposals are assigned bill numbers, and a committee will hold public hearings on the bills before they can be sent to the full chamber for a vote.
Advocates across the state are hoping the General Assembly will keep to the constitution in holding a transparent process that allows the public time to review maps before they’re voted on, and provide public input.
“You don’t get a fair map without a fair process,” said Bria Bennett, a spokesperson for the Equal Districts Coalition, in a statement. “Closed-door drafting, limits on public testimony and ignored constitutional criteria are not routine politics; they’re power grabs that cheat Ohio voters out of fair representation in Congress.”
Without bipartisan approval, the legislature can’t pass a map, and if the deadline passes without agreement, the process moves on to the Ohio Redistricting Commission.
The seven-person commission is made up of mostly majority party members, as dictated by the redistricting constitutional amendment.
The Senate president, House speaker, Senate minority leader, and House minority leader can all choose to serve on the commission or appoint another member of their chamber to serve.
The governor, auditor, and secretary of state are all required to be on the commission.
With the current make-up of statewide officeholders, this means the Ohio Redistricting Commission has a 5-2, Republican-to-Democratic split.
Public hearings should be held by the commission as well on any proposed maps, before their deadline of Oct. 31.
The rules state the group must also come up with bipartisan support to adopt a new map.
A lack of agreement in the commission means the process goes back to the legislature, who has a final deadline of Nov. 30 to come up with a congressional map.
This time, while the legislature has to follow specific constitutional rules to do so, the legislature can pass a map with a simple majority, rather than the 66% needed in the original attempt.
In order to pass a map with a simple majority, the congressional districts “must not unduly favor or disfavor a political party or its incumbents,” lawmakers are prohibited from improperly splitting counties, townships and municipal corporations, and the General Assembly “must attempt, but is not required, to draw districts that are compact,” according to a Legislative Service Commission brief.
The 6-1 Republican Ohio Supreme Court has jurisdiction over any legal challenges to the map that may happen after it’s passed.
Both previous congressional maps were challenged, and both maps were found by a previous bipartisan 4-3 court majority to be unconstitutionally partisan, favoring the Republicans more than aligned with voting trends.
The makeup of justices on the state’s highest court has changed since then, and now holds a firm Republican majority of 6 to 1.
The Republican swing vote in both the previous congressional redistricting decisions was Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, who has since retired. Current Chief Justice Sharon Kennedy was on the court for those cases and voted to reject the challenges.
If the congressional plan should get struck down as unconstitutional, the legislature has 30 days to adopt a new plan after appeals have been exhausted.
If the legislature still can’t agree or misses the deadline, the Ohio Redistricting Commission is once again brought in with another 30-day deadline.