WARRENSVILLE HEIGHTS, Ohio — Governor Mike DeWine remains hopeful that a bipartisan deal can be reached on a 10-year plan for new legislative districts. That deal will require the votes of the redistricting commission's two Democratic members, one of whom State Senator Vernon Sykes (D-Akron) said last week the map Republicans introduced takes the process in the wrong direction.
"The partisan proportions are worse than what they are existing today," Sykes said.
The governor who also sits on the commission said he disagrees with that assertion but with the September 15 constitutional deadline looming he remains hopeful that a compromise can be reached on a 10-year deal.
"I'm still optimistic that we can reach a conclusion, that we can get everybody who is on this commission to be satisfied with it and move forward," DeWine said Monday prior to the start of the commission's Northeast Ohio hearing at Tri-C's East Campus.
"Our goal should be to have something that the two Democrats can be OK with," DeWine said. "That's our goal, now I don't know if we can make that or not."
Just before 5 p.m. Monday, the Democrats proposed another map with variations on the Republicans to better comply with the constitutional requirements. The governor says with the deadline looming they'll look at it.
"I don't see any way that we're going to be able to analyze it right in the middle of the hearing but it's something that we will want to look at and we will then want to get back and say look this is something that we think is good or here are some changes that need to be made in it or whatever we come up with but we have to look at it," DeWine said.
The commission will hold one more hearing ahead of the Wednesday deadline, Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. in Columbus.
