Until Friday morning, the 130th Ohio General Assembly didn't have much to brag about. The past two years haven't exactly been an era of constructive legislating. But with the Senate's wee-hours passage of a proposal to reform the process for drawing legislative districts, it ends its run with an historic accomplishment: Assuming the House of Representatives votes this week to approve the final version of the resolution it overwhelmingly approved Dec. 3, the stage will be set for fundamentally better state government.

Until Friday morning, the 130th Ohio General Assembly didn't have much to brag about. The past two years haven't exactly been an era of constructive legislating.

But with the Senate's wee-hours passage of a proposal to reform the process for drawing legislative districts, it ends its run with an historic accomplishment: Assuming the House of Representatives votes this week to approve the final version of the resolution it overwhelmingly approved Dec. 3, the stage will be set for fundamentally better state government.

Districts that better reflect Ohioans' political leanings will yield a legislature more focused on solving the state's problems and less inclined to wage ideological warfare.

After House approval, the measure will go to the ballot in November as a constitutional amendment, and Ohio voters will have the opportunity put in place long-needed change.

The divisive, extremist political climate that has stymied progress in Ohio in recent years isn't a mystery; it is rooted in legislative districts drawn to maximize political advantage rather than to fairly represent the population. The state's current system of drawing Statehouse districts is winner-take-all; whichever party controls two of three top statewide offices - governor, auditor and secretary of state - enjoys a majority on the Apportionment Board and can draw maps with essentially no input from the other party.

This leads to artificially safe districts on both sides of the aisle, which perverts the electoral process and strips voters of power. A candidate whose party overwhelmingly dominates his district can win without making any effort to appeal to those in the other party.

Changing this obviously broken system has been difficult, because the politicians in power at any given time generally have benefited from it.

Ohio owes a great debt of thanks to the far-sighted legislators who have stuck with the issue. In the Senate, Republican Frank LaRose of Copley and Democrat Tom Sawyer of Akron led the current effort, along with Reps. Matt Huffman, a Lima Republican, and Vernon Sykes of Akron. Secretary of State Jon Husted put forward a good plan in 2010 when he was a state senator, and has continued to urge reform ever since.

This year, unlike in other years, a commitment by House and Senate leadership got the resolution over the goal line.

The heart of the proposed change is a requirement for minority-party buy-in. It would expand the Apportionment Board to seven - the three statewide officials, plus two legislators from each party - and require at least two minority-party votes for a new district map to be approved for a full 10-year period.

If board members reach an impasse, a simple majority - in effect, the majority party - can approve a map, but that map would be in place for only four years.

It's not a guarantee of fairness, but it gives both the majority and the minority an incentive to be reasonable, and that's a significant improvement over the present process.

The plan also would clarify some "guardrails" for mapmakers, rules about how district lines can be drawn.

Lopsided votes in favor of the plan in both the House and Senate offer some hope that Ohio politics can get better.

When the plan appears on the ballot, voters should give it their blessing.