Photo by Michelle Dillon Former Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, right, speaks Tuesday morning at the Washington County Fairgrounds to a group of labor union members and other supporters, including Ohio American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) Southeast Central Labor Council President Ted Linscott, fifth from left, about the Citizens Not Politicians Amendment, which she supports being put on the November ballot. The amendment would switch redstricing to a citizen-led commission instead of the current politician-run process.

A small group of people gathered at the Washington County Fairgrounds Tuesday morning to hear former Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor speak about efforts to put a constitutional amendment for the state redistricting process on the November ballot.

O’Connor, a Republican who retired in 2023 due to an age limit for judges running for the Ohio Supreme Court, was the first woman to be the Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court.

She spoke about the Citizens Not Politicians amendment at an event organized by the nonprofit organization Citizens Not Politicians, not too far from one of the many polling locations in Washington County where citizens were casting their vote for either Republican Mihcael Rulli or Democrat Michael Kripchak to serve the rest of the term left empty when Bill Johnson left his seat in the Ohio 6th Congressional District.

According to Citizens Not Politicians’ website, the constitutional amendment seeks to create a 15-member Ohio Citizens Redistricting Commission made up of Democrats, Republicans and Independent citizens who “broadly represent the different geographic areas and demographics of the state” and it seeks to ban former and current politicians, political party officials and lobbyists from being on the commission. The website said the amendment also seeks to create fair and impartial state and Congressional districts in Ohio.

Ohio Congressional and state legislative districts are redrawn every 10 years after the U.S. Census by the Ohio Redistricting Commission, which is currently composed completely of politicians, namely State Auditor Keith Faber, a Republican; Ohio Senate Minority Leader Sen. Nickie J. Antonio, a Democrat; Ohio Senate Majority Floor Leader Sen. Rob McColley, a Republican; Ohio House of Representative Minority Leader Rep. C. Allison Russo, a Democrat; Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican; State Representative Jeff LaRe, a Republican; and Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican.

Chris Davey with Citizens Not Politicians opened the event with a few words, saying that O’Connor would be touring the entire length of the Ohio 6th Congressional District, with the first stop being Marietta.

Then Citizens not Politicians volunteer and League of Women Voters of Ohio member Debbie Schmeiding spoke about the effects of gerrymandered districts.

“We have a more and more difficult time getting candidates to participate in our voter guides … We have a harder time getting candidates to come to candidate forums,” Schmeiding said. “When you know you’re going to be elected you don’t have to show up…Gerrymandering is cheating. It’s just cheating and we really need to get this passed.”

Then Ohio American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) Southeast Central Labor Council President and Citizens Not Politicians volunteer Ted Linscott also spoke.

He thanked O’Connor for being an advocate for years for fair districts in Ohio.

“The citizens of Marietta should not have to share a Congressional district with folks that live 200 miles away from us,” Linscott said. “We don’t have the same cultures. We don’t have the same economics. We don’t have the same interests … I’m not saying that any of that is wrong, we’re just different … We can no longer allow politicians to manipulate our districts for their own gain.”

Linscott called the 6th Congressional district – which consists of all of Washington, Monroe, Noble, Mahoning, Columbiana, Carroll, Jefferson, Belmont and Harrison counties and parts of Stak and Tuscarawas counties – “the poster child for what is wrong with gerrymandering in Ohio.”

O’Connor spoke last. She thanked the League of Women Voters of Ohio for its support of the petition to get the constitutional amendment on the November ballot.

She said when districts are gerrymandered, politicians don’t listen to the people that they represent but instead listen to politicians about how they should do their jobs.

“And that’s what we have over and over again,” O’Connor said. “That’s what we need to get rid of.”

O’Connor referenced a report conducted by University of Cincinnati Political Science Professor and researcher David Niven, “Strangers in District 6,” which he conducted for the League of Women Voters of Ohio. In the report Niven said when evaluating the legitimacy of a congressional district’s boundaries the main question to ask is whether the geographical, cultural and economic makeup of the districts fosters “robust representation.”

“The 6th U.S. House District of Ohio … which encompasses four different regional economies, which slices apart predominantly African American areas of Massillon, which divides even a two-building school system into multiple Congressional Districts – miserably fails this standard,” Niven said in the report. He said in the report the district is drawn to make representation difficult and it is a “district of strangers.”

O’Connor talked about how getting rid of gerrymandered districts is important to her and the people of Ohio and the citizens of this country.

“This isn’t just about Marietta or about the 6th Congressional District or even just about Ohio,” she said. “What Ohio does will resonate across the country. There are people in other states that are watching very closely what Ohio is doing and will take encouragement from what happens here.”

O’Connor said she believes there will be more than enough signatures on the petition to get the constitutional amendment on the November ballot.

According to Schmeiding, they need about 416,000 signatures and they have more than 700,000. She said the signatures will be turned in to LaRose at the beginning of July and by early August they should know if the signatures have been certified.

O’Connor said right now they are checking and double checking all the signatures to make sure they are valid.

“Those (signatures) will be certified by the Secretary of State, because they have to be because they’re valid,” O’Connor said. “He’s not going to be able to squirm on that one.”

According to O’Connor, she has held some very important elected positions in her career and has done a lot of good things with the help of her staff and colleagues.

“Of all the things I’ve contributed to this state, this is the most important,” she said of the constitutional amendment.

Learn more about the amendment and petition at https://www.citizensnotpoliticians.org/.

Michelle Dillon can be reached at mdillon@newsandsentinel.com