Gerrymandered Democracy? Democratic Competition and the Legislative Agenda of the 135th Ohio General Assembly.

Abstract

There is a rich history of gerrymandering in Ohio, culminating in a contentious legal battle leading up to the 2022 election, debating the constitutionality of the proposed electoral maps. This analysis was inspired by those events and the lengths Ohio Republicans are willing to go to preserve their control over the redistricting process. The question explored in this paper hypothesized a positive relationship between electoral non-competition and supporting “controversial” legislation. Although gerrymandering has been studied quite extensively within the federal context, there is less information on how gerrymandering impacts state-level politics. The data pulled from the 135th Ohio General Assembly found some positive, statistically significant relationships between Ohio Republicans from non-competitive districts and their willingness to vote for and sponsor “controversial” bills. These results did not completely support the proposed hypotheses but still point toward the existence of a relationship between electoral competition and controversial political agendas. Further studies are needed to comprehensively explore the impacts of gerrymandering on state-level politics. Nevertheless, it is clear that competitive electoral districts are hugely important to maintaining the ideals of a representative democracy.