- Hamilton County Judge rules Ohio can’t block Cincinnati’s gun safety ordinances
- Sept. 21 webinar on steps to prevent teen suicide
- Ohio Commission could open fracking bidding in state parks as early as this week
- Sept. 28: Justice O’Connor describes proposal to prevent partisan gerrymandering
- Redistricting struggles continue
Hamilton County judge rules State can’t block Cincinnati gun ordinances: Judge Jennifer Branch granted a preliminary injunction Sept. 14 against Ohio’s law preempting local governments from enacting laws to protect their citizens from gun violence. She found that the state constitution’s home rule amendment permits local governments to pass ordinances to meet their community’s specific circumstances. Cincinnati City Council passed two gun safety ordinances this year – one on safe storage to protect children, and the other to ban people convicted of domestic violence or subject to a protection order from owning firearms. The Cincinnati case is part of a statewide struggle. A Franklin County judge also found the state preemption law unconstitutional, allowing a Columbus ordinance to stand, but a state appeals court overturned that decision in August. The Ohio Attorney General’s office said it plans to appeal Judge Branch’s injunction.
Sept. 21: Steps You can Take to Prevent Teen Suicide, Zoom webinar at 7 pm: Bexley Police Detective Darren Briley and Be SMART lead Deb Grayson of Ohio Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America will offer tips on how parents who own guns can keep them out of the reach of children and steps you can take to ensure children don’t encounter guns in the homes of friends, family, and neighbors. Register here.
Ohio Commission debating how to open state parks and wildlife areas to fracking bids after evidence of fraudulent public comments: Ohio’s Oil and Gas Land Management Commission postponed decisions at its Sept. 18 meeting on whether to open bidding to frack on two state parks and two protected wildlife areas. Many fracking opponents attended. This followed reporting by Cleveland.com and Save Our Parks that almost 150 Ohioans including a 9-year old child believe their names and personal information were fraudulently used in public comments claiming they support these oil and gas industry applications. The Ohio Attorney General issued subpoenas in the case last week. But The Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Jake Zuckerman quoted remarks by several commissioners showing what he called “a gung-ho attitude toward opening the lands to drilling.”
Late last year the Ohio State Legislature passed a bill requiring state agencies to lease their lands to any qualified bidders, and defining natural gas as “green energy.” The Ohio Environmental Council filed a suit last spring challenging the law on procedural grounds and has asked the Commission to pause any decisions until the public comment record is accurate. But if the process goes forward, the deadline for public comment on the second Salt Fork nomination is Monday, Sept. 25. Click here for instructions on how to submit a comment.
Sept. 28: Independent Redistricting Commission for Ohio: A Policy Deep Dive with Retired Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, noon. To learn more about the citizen proposal to create an independent, transparent, and non-partisan process for drawing Ohio’s Congressional and state legislative districts, sign up for the Citizens Not Politicians webinar and read more about the issues in “Redistricting struggles continue,” below. Since retiring, Judge O’Connor has been helping fellow Ohioans draft the non-partisan process in the proposed constitutional amendment which has qualified for the ballot, but for which the Attorney General has not yet approved ballot language.
Redistricting struggles continue: Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has rejected the second proposed ballot wording for a new constitutional amendment to create a non-partisan redistricting process.
A statewide coalition of more than 30 organizations including the Ohio Council of Churches, Faith in Public Life, the League of Women Voters Ohio, Common Cause Ohio, NAACP Ohio Chapter, and the Ohio Environmental Council have organized “Citizens Not Politicians” to support the passage in 2024 of the constitutional amendment in question. Supporters collected far more than the required number of petition signatures from eligible voters. They must collect at least 1,000 signatures each time they submit a proposed summary for the ballot.
Click here for the slide deck from Citizens Not Politicians’ September Fair Districts All Volunteer Huddle. Slides 11-17 describe the proposed redistricting process, including how members of the Redistricting Commission would be selected, map drawing criteria, public hearings and transparency, and how to request judicial review of the maps.
Meanwhile, you may recall that the Ohio Supreme Court ruled between 2021 and summer, 2022 that every single one of the maps created by the Ohio Redistricting Commission disproportionately favored the Republican Party and thus violated specific criteria in Ohio’s Constitution. The Redistricting Commission convened twice last week to start work on redrafting the state legislative district maps but stopped the meetings both times because the Republican members were unable to agree on who should serve as House and Senate co-chairs from their caucus.
Advocates for fair districts have withdrawn their suit against the current Congressional maps because the Ohio Redistricting Commission (if it ever manages to meet) could draw even more partisan maps and the new composition of the Ohio Supreme Court is unlikely to see that as a problem. The current state legislature has a veto-proof Republican supermajority in both houses though the division of votes between the two parties has a significantly smaller margin. Former Ohio Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, a Republican who retired at the end of 2022 due to age limits, found all the maps drawn in 2021-22 unconstitutionally partisan, but her replacement was appointed by Gov. DeWine, a member of the Redistricting Commission who voted for all the maps Chief Justice O’Conner joined the Court’s three Democrats in rejecting.
There is an inherent conflict of interest if politicians serving in elected offices are part of the process of redistricting, with parties who hold majorities consistently trying to draw the lines to keep their power. This happened in multiple states after the 2020 Census, including New York (a Democratic gerrymander thrown out through the state’s fair district process) and Ohio and Alabama (Republican gerrymander). Litigation continues over racial gerrymandering of Alabama’s Congressional district map which the US Supreme Court found in violation of the Voting Rights Act.
Advocacy briefings are compiled by Ariel Miller, a longtime community advocate and member of Ascension & Holy Trinity, Wyoming. Connect with her at arielmillerwriter@gmail.com
