Minnesota Independence Party Demoted to Minor-Party Status

The political home of former Gov. Jesse Ventura was demoted after none of its statewide candidates received at least five percent of the vote.  It was the second consecutive election with that result.

The secretary of state's office formally informed the party's leader in a letter Tuesday that it has been downgraded from major-party to minor-party status.  That means its candidates must clear extra hurdles to get on ballots and won't have access to as much public campaign financing as before.

Going forward, Independence Party candidates must submit nominating signatures from voters to qualify for the ballot.

Other minor parties are: the Green Party, the Grassroots-Legalize Cannabis Party, the Legal Marijuana Now Party and the Libertarian Party.

Richard Winger of Ballot Access news wrote:

Minnesota requires parties to poll 5% to be on the ballot automatically. That is more severe than the average state.  The median vote test in the 50 states for a party to be on the ballot with petitioning for its nominees is only 2%.  Wisconsin only requires 1%, and Michigan is approximately one-half of 1%.  Iowa is 2% and South Dakota is 2.5%.  The Minnesota law requiring 5% is not rationale.  Obviously the Independence Party is a bona-fide party and ought to be on the ballot automatically.  The party was very unlucky last month; it got 4.9% for Secretary of State.











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Democrats' RootsCamp Getting Ready for 2016

RootsCamp, is a two-day "un-conference", their phrase, of more than 2,500 progressive activists and campaign pros have been gathering yearly in Washington to drink, talk shop and swap lessons from the election season that was.

The gathering, run by the New Organizing Institute, a progressive outfit that trains activists and operatives in the fields of data, digital and organizing, has blossomed since its heady inception in 2006.  Back then, when "netroots" activists were demanding a seat at the Democratic Party table after John Kerry's presidential loss, the event was an amateurish meet-up of some 200 web-obsessed Democrats who convened in coffee shops and college classrooms in Washington, Brooklyn, and Denver to plot strategy.

Today, RootsCamp feels like a Vegas tech expo for Democrats.

Participants at the Washington Convention Center wandered through a job fair that showcased vendors, labor unions, data houses and political committees from across the progressive spectrum.  AFSCME, SEIU, Emily's List, MoveOn.org, ActBlue, Civis Analytics, BlueState Digital, NGP VAN, Salsa Labs, Mobile Commons, the Analyst Institute, Catalist, all of them were eagerly swapping business cards with the next generation of Democratic whiz kids.

Panels and training sessions starred political directors and digital gurus from the Democratic National Committee, Planned Parenthood, NextGen Climate, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee who walked audience members, many of them field organizers and young digital staffers from various midterm races, through the micro-tactics that worked in 2014 and the ones that didn't.

One official from NextGen, the environmental group founded by Bay Area billionaire Tom Steyer, told a room that the group identified over 350,000 "climate action" voters with the help of five in-house data staffers and a rigorous field program.  The organization ran 21 field experiments this cycle, testing whether black-and-white mail worked better than color, or if combining messages like "climate and choice" in certain states made a bigger impact on voters than climate-messaging alone, it did.

The unapologetically dorky breakout sessions had titles like "OMG! SMS for GOTV" and "Simple tricks to up your A/B testing game."  One pink-clad speaker took to a podium to recruit female attendees to the free "women-only" coding classes she was running.  In the hallways between panels, conversations could seem downright exotic to the untrained ear, as conference-goers joked about "ROC curves" and "sucky U.I.s."

While Democrats on Capitol Hill were debating a controversial omnibus spending bill that threatened to keep Congress in town through Christmas, the Democrats at RootsCamp were still focused on the nitty-gritty of campaign life, trying to work out the bugs before 2016 and find the best ways to streamline the software platforms, user interfaces and voter data that campaigns now rely on.

If anyone had hang-ups about revealing their hard-earned intel to potential competitors, they weren't talking.  Information-sharing, the thinking at RootsCamp goes, isn't just good for Democrats at the ballot box, it's good for business.

Annie Wang, a data scientist from Civis Analytics, a targeting firm born out of Obama's 2012 campaign, was one of dozens of presenters at the conference promoting products that make campaigning easier and more efficient.

"We are trying to democratize data science, so that organizers throughout the progressive universe can have these data tools at their disposal," Wang told an eager crowd during a plenary session called "Disrupt 2016."

Across town at DNC Headquarters, national party officials tapped the assembled brain power for a day-long post-mortem with over thirty digital directors and data scientists from state Democratic parties and some of the year's biggest Senate and gubernatorial campaigns, including those of Wendy Davis, Charlie Crist, Alison Lundergan Grimes, Michelle Nunn.

The election results were chastening for the Democratic tech community, said Matt Compton, the DNC's digital director.  "It was a very strong reminder that even the best organizing in the world really only has an impact on the margins," he said.  "It's important to acknowledge that atmospheres still matter, and the American people will have their say regardless of technology you are going to produce."

Compton gushed over the ability of Democrats to "scale down" the tactics of the 2012 presidential campaign to the statewide and congressional level without having the kind of big budget that Obama relied on.

And importantly, Compton said, running from behind forces campaigns to re-think their strategies and test new tools and methods.

"If you are behind, you are willing to take more risks, to do things you were not willing to try before," Compton said.  "If you are in a really tight race, that means that your budget constraints can be tighter and that sometimes forces you to bring more things in-house or to look for things that can be more efficient, or develop a tool that's going to help you save money."

He pointed specifically to the campaigns of Nunn in Georgia, which polished their online fundraising practices by matching their email list against Facebook and testing how potential donors responded to various messages, and the Crist campaign in Florida, which invented a new tool that helped Democrats sign up online to vote by mail.

The Crist campaign tool would check a voter's submission on CharlieCrist.com against the voter file at the DNC to make sure their address matched their voter registration.  If it did, an email was sent from the voter's email to address to the local supervisor of elections to request a ballot.  "No printing, no stamps, nada," said Amanda Litman, the campaign's digital director.  In the end, nearly 20,000 Florida voters obtained ballots using the tool.  Litman said their models showed most of them were sporadic voters.

"Democrats this cycle may have lost, but we raised the bar on what statewide and down-ballot races can accomplish online," Litman said.  "We worked together to innovate, test, share best practices, and build a stronger network and pipeline of talent."

Kassia DeVorsey, an MIT-educated analytics specialist who was one of the "cave dwellers" in the Obama campaign's dimly-lit Chicago data office, estimated that Democratic campaigns around the country had about 100 data scientists working on their races, with another 100 doing work on independent expenditures and issue campaigns.  None of them were rookies.  "These are folks with rich experience with data tools," she said.

But DeVorsey and others who came to Washington for RootsCamp stressed, over and over again, that nothing in campaign politics is static.  Republicans continue to innovate, issues change, and the technology and data that campaigns rely on is always evolving, from Facebook's API to the information contained in the Democrats' national voter file.

"Our tools are only as good and useful as they can be used in practice," DeVorsey said.  "If we spend a lot of time creating the most the awesome Phillips head screwdriver and what organizers really need is a flat-head, then we have completely failed at our mission ... The ongoing commitment on the Democratic side to testing will really help optimize things going forward."

Yet with all the technology, there has to be qualified candidates, to get out the vote, and eligible voters the ability to get to the polls.











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Texas House District 17 Special Election

Early voting starts today in several special elections, for races to be held January 6, including one to fill a State House seat vacated by State Rep. Tim Kleinschmidt, R-Lexington.

Voters in Bastrop, Caldwell, Gonzales, Karnes and Lee Counties are casting a ballot once again.  They’re choosing a new Texas House member to represent House District 17, a seat that opened up after Rep. Kleinschmidt resigned to work for the Texas Department of Agriculture.

Candidates vying for that seat include two Democrats, two Republicans and one Independent.



My independent friend, Linda Curtis, is the independent.

She entered this race as an independent because she believes the people of House District 17 must unite outside the political parties to fight for their most valuable asset, groundwater.

Officials in both parties have turned their heads while big real estate interests are making repeated attempts to grab our water, property rights and economic future.  Who is to say that the interests of those driving development and hyper-growth along the IH-35 corridor are more important than the economic well being of House District 17 counties.

We talk about how independent Texas is.  Isn’t it time we make history and put one in the Texas House?

CLICK HERE for her website.  If you are a Texan, give her a chance to make a difference.

UPDATE
The special election for State House, district 17, was on January 6.  Five candidates ran.  Texas special elections don’t have party nominees; all candidates file and run in the same election, and if no one gets 50%, there is a runoff.

The vote was: Republican John Cyrier 3,515; Republican Brent Goleman 1,866; independent Linda Curtis 1,046; Democrat Ty McDonald 907; Democrat Shelley Cartier 290.  Because no one got 50%, there will be a runoff between Cyrier and Goleman.

Linda Curtis, the independent candidate, placed third, ahead of both Democrats.  This is probably the first time in decades that an independent out polled major party members in any Texas race for federal or state office.  Texas hasn’t elected an independent to the legislature since 1936.











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The Food Recovery Network

Ben Simon founded The Food Recovery Network in 2011, at the University of Maryland, to deliver food from college cafeterias to the hungry before it's thrown out.

Within months, the network grew to include dozens of chapters at colleges across the country.  More than 611,092 pounds of recovered food later, Simon is launching his most ambitious initiative to date, the Food Recovery Certified.  The nonprofit's new certification program aims to recognize and reward restaurants, caterers and dining halls across the country that donate their leftovers.

Any food provider in the country can apply to be Food Recovery Certified as long as they donate their leftovers at least once a month.  Cara Mayo, Food Recovery Certified’s program manager, works with local nonprofits to verify the donations.

She says she hopes becoming certified will become a national trend.



“Consumers want there businesses to be associated with an environmental or social cause.  They want the effects of it to be felt in their home and in their community.”

CLICK HERE for more information about the Network and the Food Recovery Certified program.











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Louisiana could have an Independent Party in 2015

A new political party could be on the horizon for Louisiana.

In 2014, the legislature removed the legal ban on establishment of the independent party.

There are approximately 79,000+ voters who wrote in “Independent” on the voter registration forms, in the blank that asks the applicant to choose a party.

It only takes 1,000 people registered for someone to file the official documents with a $1,000 filing fee.

Qualified parties in Louisiana can’t have their own presidential primary unless they have registration of 5%.  Currently, the registration number is only about half-way to qualifying for its own presidential primary.

But whether those who self-identify as independents will consider themselves members of an independent party is another thing, Secretary of State Tom Schedler said.

“Some people are saying, ‘I want flexibility.  I don’t want to be characterized as a Republican or Democrat,’” he said.

But whether either of those factors bode well for an independent party isn’t clear.

“There are a lot of people not inclined to be a part of the Democratic or Republican party.  With an increasing number of people who are unaffiliated, there’s a group of people ripe for the picking,” said LSU political scientist Robbie Hogan.

Hogan noted that for candidates in certain election districts, it might be easier “for an ideological moderate to carve out a niche” with independent registrants.

“Maybe it’s a way to avoid this national partisanship that’s creeping into local and state elections. It’s saying, ‘I’m neither of those,’ ” Hogan said.

Schedler said Louisiana voters have shown an ability to elect non-party-affiliated candidates.  He noted legislators have been elected more than once without a Democratic or Republican label.  He said people vote for individuals who are respected in their communities.

Democratic Party Executive Director Stephen Handwerk said the most prominent Democratic vs. no party race this past year was the Shreveport mayor’s race, where the Democrat handily won.

“Running as an independent cuts the candidate off from accessing party resources like the voter file and coordinated campaign activities,” Handwerk said.  “Voters want to understand and identify with candidates, and running as an independent only adds to the questions voters have.”

State Republican Party Executive Director Jason Doré said a lot of people like to consider themselves independent and not tied to a party.  But they still want candidates to take stands on issues, he said.

“They are affiliated with a certain set of principles and beliefs in a party platform,” Doré said.  “As an independent, the voter doesn’t really know what you stand for.”

Independent would become the sixth recognized party in Louisiana, joining the Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, Green and Reform parties.











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Republican New Math is Dynamic Scoring

Republicans are getting ready for the chance to make radical changes in Congress’ budgeting rules aimed at making it easier to cut taxes.

As they prepare to take full control of Congress, Republicans say they will make long-sought changes in how the likely cost of tax legislation is determined.  They say the new rules, known in budget circles as “dynamic scoring,” will provide a fairer picture of the impact of tax cuts.

But there are plenty of risks for Republicans, because asking experts to analyze the economic impact of tax cuts raises the possibility that they won’t find much.

“It doesn’t always work out for everybody involved,” said Will McBride, chief economist at the conservative Tax Foundation.  “Some things that are very popular don’t have much of an economic effect.”

Adopting so-called dynamic scoring has been a holy grail for Republicans going back to the days of Arthur Laffer’s famous economic theory-making on a bar napkin.  Laffer later advised Ronald Reagan.

The idea is that cutting taxes unleashes economic growth, which in turn produces additional revenue.  Republicans want to count that extra revenue against what the Treasury loses when Congress hands out tax cuts.  That would reduce the hit to the budget, making it easier to push tax cuts through Congress.  Incoming House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) calls it “reality-based scoring.”

The effort, which Ryan is leading, aims to make it easier to finance what Republicans hope will be a once-in-a-generation overhaul of the Tax Code.

Democrats accuse Republicans of trying to cook the books, and risk ruining the hard-won credibility of Congress’ independent scorekeepers, in an ideological crusade to cut taxes.

The bid is being driven in part by the failure of the outgoing Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) to make good on long-standing promises to present a tax reform plan that cut the top individual tax rate to 25 percent.  Camp, unable to make the math work, was forced to settle for 35 percent, just 4 percentage points below the current top rate, and part of an overhaul plan released in February.  Republicans believe dynamic scoring will make it much easier to finally reach 25 percent.

Some also want to replace Congressional Budget Office ("CBO") Director Douglas Elmendorf, though it’s actually another office, the Joint Committee on Taxation ("JTC"), that analyzes tax bills.  The two offices, both stocked with Ph.D. economists, share responsibility for putting price tags on lawmakers’ legislative dreams, with JCT focused on taxes and the budget office handling the rest.

Democrats scoff at the entire effort, saying the economic implications of bills are impossible to accurately forecast.

“Any effort by Republicans to interfere with the professional integrity of the CBO by selecting someone to push their failed ‘trickle down’ economic theory of tax cuts for the wealthy through dynamic scoring would undermine the credibility of CBO and the entire budget process,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee.

Sometimes lost in the often heated debate is the possibility that Republicans will be disappointed by dynamic scoring, just as they are sometimes confounded by scorekeepers’ current budget estimates.

Ryan acknowledged that, even if scorekeepers adopt the new methods, they still may not always tell Republicans what they want to hear.

“As a policymaker, I want to know whether my policies stand a better chance of growing the economy or not,” said Ryan. Right now, “we don’t get any answer and you’re just flying blind.”

Though the government does not currently use dynamic scoring, House rules require the joint tax panel to produce such analyses for tax bills as supplements to its conventional revenue estimates.

Those reports suggest dynamic scoring may not always be the windfall Republicans are expecting.

For example, JCT’s analysis of Camp’s tax reform bill suggests lawmakers may be overstating the likely economic benefits of reforming the business side of the Tax Code.

It found that while Camp’s plan would boost the economy between 0.1 percent and 1.6 percent, producing from $50 billion to $700 billion in extra “dynamic” revenue, the proposal’s business section would probably increase the costs of investments, a key ingredient of economic growth.

That’s because Camp took away so many narrow tax breaks, most notably accelerated depreciation, in order to finance his rate cuts, that taxes on new investments would actually go up.

“On net, the after-tax return to business capital is reduced relative to present law by these changes overall,” JCT wrote.

That’s a clear warning to lawmakers now considering a corporate-only tax overhaul that the effort may have only a mixed impact on the economy, said Alan Viard, an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

If lawmakers look to the same pay-fors as Camp, and as one of the largest corporate tax breaks, accelerated depreciation is a fat target, they’ll likely find the economic benefits of their plan will be similarly muted, said Viard.

Other dynamic analyses by JCT suggest it is harder to boost the economy via tax cuts than many Republicans may believe.

In May, then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said a Republican plan to extend a corporate research tax break is “one of the most generative things we can do from a policy standpoint” to “grow jobs and to have America work again for more people.”

But the joint tax panel said only that while the bill “could” spur companies to increase research expenditures “by up to 10 percent,” it’s hard to draw a line from that to economic growth.  Just because a company spends a dollar investigating something doesn’t mean it necessarily boosts overall growth.  “It is difficult to find objective measures of productivity, and of the stock of knowledge created by research expenditures,” JCT said in its analysis of the plan.

Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.), a member of the Ways and Means Committee, said he was not surprised that some tax bills would have a limited impact on the economy.  While some of the measures may appear large compared with the government’s $500 billion budget deficit, they’re often quite small compared with the $17 trillion U.S. economy.

“A lot of times, smaller provisions just won’t trigger enough of an economic impact to give you a dynamic score,” he said.

I have said for awhile now, that in the 21st Century, we need new data points in the CBO's calculations, bur Dynamic Scoring is not the answer.

No where in their calculations do that take into account our current underground and barter economy.











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The Deep South and the 2016 Primary Season

The Deep South has elected Republicans to every top office in the region.  Now it wants to be sure that clout extends to the choice of the GOP’s 2016 presidential nominee.

Officials in five Southern states — Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas — are coordinating to hold their primary on March 1, 2016.  Texas and Florida are considering also holding a primary the same day but may wait until later in the month.  Either way, March 1 would be a Southern Super Tuesday, voting en masse on the heels of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.

The joint primary, which appears increasingly likely to happen, would present a crucial early test for Republican White House hopefuls among the party’s most conservative voters.  It could, in theory, boost a conservative alternative to a Republican who has emerged as the establishment favorite from the four states that kick off the nominating process.  But one risk is that the deep-red complexion of the Southern states’ primary electorates would empower a candidate who can’t win in general election battlegrounds like Ohio and Colorado.

Republicans from the South say their states make up the heart of the GOP and that it’s only fitting the region should have commensurate say over whom the party puts forward to compete for the White House.  Proponents are already dubbing March 1 the “SEC primary,” after the NCAA’s powerhouse Southeastern Conference.

The Republican National Committee changed its rules this year to try pushing back the Iowa caucuses from January in 2012 to February in 2016.  New penalties also make it virtually impossible for any state other than New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada to vote before the end of that month.

The Southern states, which are preparing to lock in March 1 through a combination of legislative and executive actions, want to be first out of the gate afterward.

Some GOP insiders believe that Florida and Texas will opt to push back their primaries until later in March.  Under the new RNC rules, states that wait until March 15 can have “winner take all” primaries, with the candidate receiving the most votes collecting all of a state’s delegates.  The potential presidential candidates from Florida and Texas are likely to prefer that.  In 2012, Florida lost half its delegates by voting before it was allowed to.

It will be very difficult for a candidate who does not win in one of the first four states to survive until March as a viable contender.  Money dries up, endorsements go elsewhere and volunteers lose their enthusiasm.  So the test in the South will likely pit the winners of the first states against one another.

The RNC rule requiring that states voting on March 1 award their delegates proportionally increases the likelihood of a similar situation in 2016, with different states choosing different candidates and no decisive statement out of the region.

The primary calendars that are set by the GOP secretaries of state will apply to both Democrats and Republicans.  In the marathon 2008 fight between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, Southern states wound up playing important roles, but at least at the moment, Clinton appears to have a much clearer path to the nomination.

Others do not expect a March 1 cluster.  More likely, there will be a series of semi-regional primaries.  Michigan, Illinois and Missouri might all vote on March 15, creating a Midwest primary.  A few Western states may team up to vote on another Tuesday later in March.

Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who dreamed up the “SEC primary” branding, said he doesn’t care who the nominee ends up being.  He just wants his state to be relevant in presidential politics.











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NC Supreme Court Upheld 2011 Redistricting Plan

On December 19, the North Carolina Supreme Court upheld the Republican-led redrawing of the 2011 redistricting plan for both U.S. House and State legislature that will be used through 2020.  The voting rights advocates who brought the case say they will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the State Supreme Court.

The North Carolina case is Dickson v Rucho, 201PA12. The vote was 4-2.  Two N.C. Supreme Court justices - Cheri Beasley and Robin Hudson, both Democrats – issued a dissenting opinion in the case.  Justice Robert N. “Bob” Hunter Jr., who was appointed to the N.C. Supreme Court this fall, months after the January arguments, did not participate in the ruling, according to court documents.

A similar case is before the U.S. Supreme Court now, concerning Alabama legislative districts.

Both sets of plaintiffs argue that the districts pack too many African-American voters into certain districts, which prevents them from having an impact on most other districts.

There were other issues in the North Carolina case as well, concerning splitting precincts.

The U.S. Supreme Court is also considering whether to hear an appeal of a Virginia case in which a federal district court ruled that Virginia’s congressional map was an unconstitutional gerrymander and needed to be redrawn by 2015.











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The XL Pipeline Mystery

The proposed Keystone XL ("eXport Limited") Pipeline (Phase IV), which would essentially duplicate the Phase I pipeline between Hardisty, Alberta, and Steele City, Nebraska, with a shorter route and a larger-diameter pipe.  It would run through Baker, Montana, where American-produced light crude oil from the Williston Basin (Bakken formation) of Montana and North Dakota would be added to the Keystone's current throughput of synthetic crude oil (syncrude) and diluted bitumen (dilbit) from the oil sands of Canada.



I have written before about the pipeline and glad the President agrees with me.

President Barack Obama poured cold water once again on the alleged economic benefits of the Keystone XL oil pipeline on Friday — a theme he has sounded frequently in the past few months, increasing speculation that he will eventually kill the project.

Now the Mystery!

The pipeline crosses the Canadian boarder and needs the approval of the State Department.  If congress passes a bill, it would need the President's approval.  As the President says, under the current plan, it is Canadian oil flowing thru the pipeline.

But if it started in the U.S., only the State's Public Service Commissions ("PCS") would control if and where it is built.  So it could have been built in the U.S. at any time.  It could run from Baker, Montana, where American-produced light crude oil from the Williston Basin (Bakken formation) of Montana and North Dakota would flow thru to Wood River Refinery in Roxana, Illinois and Patoka Oil Terminal Hub (tank farm) north of Patoka, Illinois.

In Nebraska, the court battle over the pipeline is about where it will be located.  An early route through the environmentally sensitive Sand Hills region was widely criticized.  But after the pipeline company TransCanada changed the route, Republican Governor Dave Heineman approved it.  But only the Public Service Commission can handle the administrative process that goes with a specific route and its acceptance or rejection.

And finally, the CEO of TransCanada concedes there will be only 9,000 temporary construction jobs and 50 permanent jobs from the Keystone XL Pipeline.

So the pipeline should be the U.S. pipeline to keep our gas prices low.











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Ohio Moves to Make Elections More Competitive

In an era of hyperpartisan gerrymandering, which many blame for the polarization of state and national politics, Ohio took a step in the opposite direction last week.  With the support of both parties, the Ohio House gave final approval Wednesday to a plan to draw voting districts for the General Assembly using a bipartisan process, intended to make elections more competitive.

While the proposal is aimed narrowly at state legislative districts, it could have an indirect impact on congressional districts because they are drawn by state lawmakers.

The plan explicitly prohibits maps drawn to favor or disfavor one party.

Republicans, who in some ways acted against their own interests, were motivated partly out of fear of a potential voter referendum that could impose an even more sweeping overhaul.

The proposed changes, which Ohioans must vote on in a November 2015 referendum to amend the State Constitution, would not go into effect until the next redistricting, in 2021.

Jon Husted, Ohio’s Secretary of State and a Republican, praised the plan as a step toward ending polarization in the General Assembly.  Many members face competition only in primaries, pushing them to cater to ideological extremes.

But some Democrats said the change did not go far enough because it excluded congressional maps.

Republicans said that was because of the chance that the United States Supreme Court would invalidate an overhaul in a ruling expected next year.  Lawmakers in Arizona are suing to reverse a ballot initiative that took the congressional map-drawing decision out of the hands of the Legislature and gave it to an independent commission.

In 37 states, legislatures now draw voting maps.  The 13 others use commissions that are, in theory, less partisan.  In some states, the commissions are independent, and in others, their members are politically appointed.  That has been Ohio’s system since the 1970s. The Apportionment Board is composed of three elected state officials, the Governor, auditor and Secretary of State, and one member from each party chosen by the legislature.  Republicans have controlled it for three decades.

The new plan would add two members, one from each party.  And if the minority-party members did not approve of the district maps, the changes would last only four years, not the traditional 10.  Partisan control of the board could seesaw in four years after statewide elections, so this would create an incentive to win the minority’s approval.

Still, there is no guarantee the plan would lead to a more politically balanced or moderate legislature.  Americans have increasingly sorted themselves into communities that are ideologically like-minded, political scientists say.  In rural and urban areas alike, the chances that voters of opposite parties live near each other have diminished.

California, which introduced a rigorously fair redistricting process before the 2010 census, is an object lesson.  There, a 14-member, multi-partisan commission draws district lines.  In 2012, using new maps, Democrats enlarged their super-majorities in the Legislature.

Two nonpartisan groups that have pushed for decades for changes in Ohio, the League of Women Voters and Common Cause, praised the plan to a point.  It “makes significant strides to address gerrymandering of state legislative districts,” Ann E. Henkener of the League of Women Voters said in a statement, but “we are disappointed that it leaves out Congress.”

On Wednesday, after the House overwhelmingly passed the final version of the proposal on its last day of business for the year, members broke into applause.  Speaker William G. Batchelder, a Republican, stayed his gavel as he told lawmakers, “I’m not going to mention I’m not meant to allow that, because it was so damn refreshing.”










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