With a number of organizations still angry about the Ohio Redistricting Commission’s approval of General Assembly maps, the effort to change how federal and state legislative districts took a step forward.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost approved summary petition language as “fair and truthful” for a constitutional amendment that would take the power to draw those districts away from politicians and give it to a 15-member citizens commission.

The approval from Yost, a Republican, came after he twice rejected petition language from an organization called Citizens Not Politicians. The group’s leadership includes former Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, a Republican who sided with the court’s three Democrats to reject five Republican-drawn legislative maps as unconstitutional because of gerrymandering.

Citizens Not Politicians is trying to get the amendment on the November 2024 ballot and, if approved, would have the citizens commission draw maps for the 2026 election.

The next step is in the hands of the Ohio Ballot Board, which will meet shortly. The five-member board — three Republicans and two Democrats — will determine whether the group’s proposal contains a single constitutional amendment or multiple amendments.

A board decision that the proposal contains multiple amendments would require the group to collect at least 413,487 valid signatures for each amendment by July 3, 2024, to get on the Nov. 5, 2024, ballot. Collecting one set of signatures obviously would be easier.

Having two or more amendments on the same subject on the same ballot could confuse voters. Also, if there are multiple amendments and it goes to court, the process of starting to collect signatures would be delayed.

In a written statement, Citizens Not Politicians stated: “Ohioans are very receptive to our nonpartisan plan to replace politicians with citizens on a reformed redistricting commission in a transparent redistricting process and to require that all congressional and legislative maps be fair to voters.”

The constitutional amendment would create a 15-member Ohio Citizens Redistricting Commission — made up equally of Republicans, Democrats and independents from different geographic and demographic parts of the state — to draw “fair and impartial districts by making it unconstitutional to draw voting districts that discriminate against or favor any political party or individual politician,” according to the proposed ballot language.

The proposal has 50 provisions.

Statehouse Republicans question the proposal saying independent citizen commissions are not truly independent.

The effort comes after the Ohio Redistricting Commission approved state legislative maps that have 11 toss-up state House districts out of 99 and only four toss-up state Senate districts out of 33.

Unless there’s a huge Republican collapse next year — and Ohio is trending more Republican so don’t expect that to happen — the GOP would retain a supermajority in both legislative bodies.

The commission’s two Democrats — Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio, D-Lakewood, and House Minority Leader Allison Russo, D-Upper Arlington — voted in favor of the maps, meaning the districts will be in place through the 2030 election unless the constitutional amendment gets approved.

The redistricting commission’s unanimous decision drew rebukes from those who have objected to its closed-door negotiations.

O’Connor said: “We have seen once again that politicians — Democrats and Republicans both — can’t be trusted to draw fair maps in an open and transparent process. How can anybody have confidence in what the seven politicians — both Democrats and Republicans — on the redistricting commission have done?”

“This corrupt, undemocratic process has resulted in rigged maps that help politicians and their friends get re-elected at the expense of Ohio families and communities,” Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio. said.

Antonio and Russo said they support the citizens commission proposal, despite voting for maps that would be in effect through the 2030 election rather than oppose them and have maps in effect for just the 2024 election.

“My vote was not a show of support for these maps, but an action to take the process out of the hands of politicians and help move us forward to a direction where the rightful owners of these maps — the people — have the final say,’ Russo said. She added, “Every step of this process has been nothing but political.”