An Ohio panel on Oct. 31 adopted new House maps that could allow Republicans to win two more seats in next year’s midterms, and Virginia lawmakers advanced their own redistricting plan.
Ohio’s Redistricting Commission, a constitutional body empowered to ordain new district maps, unanimously approved new maps for the state. The maps garnered bipartisan support, including from the two Democratic commissioners on the panel. The body was under a constitutional deadline to enact them by Oct. 31.
The new maps significantly alter the boundaries for the First and Ninth Districts, currently held by Democratic Reps. Greg Landsman and Marcy Kaptur, respectively.
“Gerrymandering diminishes our state’s stature even as population stagnates,” wrote Kaptur on social media after Ohio’s maps were enacted. “Our democracy works best when voters choose their leaders, not when politicians choose their voters.”
Kaptur represents Toledo and Ohio’s border with Michigan.
Some Democrats, however, were less critical. “The redistricting process in Ohio has been a complete and total mess for years, but today’s outcome at least avoided a complete and total disaster,” wrote Rep. Shontel Brown, who represents the 11th District, in a statement.
Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Commission, acknowledged the map “is a gerrymander” but also saw a bright side.
“Ohio’s Democratic Legislative Leadership has fended off the most extreme scenario in the Buckeye State,” he wrote in a news release.
In Virginia, the state Senate on Oct. 31 passed an amendment to the Virginia Constitution that would allow the Democratic-led General Assembly to bypass a bipartisan redistricting commission and draw maps before the 2026 congressional general election. However, Virginia requires the bill to be passed by both houses of the General Assembly twice, with one election intervening, and then a referendum on the procedure before it goes into effect.
In Virginia, Republicans in state offices have opposed the Democratic-backed redistricting plan.
“Everything about this process was shameful, fundamentally wrong, and illegal,” wrote Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-Va.) on social media.
He said it involved “a party-line vote, in an eleventh-hour special session at the tail end of the election, with debate silenced, members threatened with removal, and resolutions against political violence shot down.”
“Virginians are not ‘leverage.’ They deserve fair districts, and they will not forget this injustice,” Youngkin added.
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