League of Women Voters of Ohio and Common Cause Ohio

CLEVELAND, Ohio - For weeks in 2011, state-paid contractors, on leave from their public jobs for Republican lawmakers, worked secretly in a hotel room described as the "bunker" to create political maps aimed at creating safe Republican districts for most of Ohio's congressional delegation.

The maps, drawn in part with guidance from national Republican Party leaders and the staff of U.S. Speaker of the House John Boehner, often disregarded community concerns and instead focused on political gains by creating districts that in some cases weave more than 100 miles across the state.

It worked. In four election cycles since, no seat has changed party hands - a 12-4 GOP majority despite a much closer overall vote.

These details of what went on behind the scenes were first disclosed in a report by the Ohio League of Women Voters and Common Cause of Ohio. The groups drew from dozens of public records obtained after the fact.

The League of Women Voters in 2017 released an updated version of the report, calling it Ohio's Gerrymandering Problem: Why Haven't We Fixed This Yet?

Because of last week's ruling in Ohio's gerrymandering case to toss out the existing map, cleveland.com is updating a previous story that focused on the findings of the report.

Scroll below to see a sampling of the emails and other documents from the report, offering insight into how the last maps were drawn.

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Rep. Marcy Kaptur’s 9th congressional district stretches from Cleveland to Toledo. The fastest route end-to-end – a 116-mile, two-hour drive mostly on the Ohio Turnpike – means leaving Kaptur’s district south of Cleveland and driving through areas represented by Jim Renacci (16th), Bob Gibbs (7th), Jim Jordan (4th) and Bob Latta (5th) before returning to Kaptur’s district for the final leg of the trip.

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Limit access to people with the four keys

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League of Women Voters of Ohio and Common Cause Ohio

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Following the direction from training by the Republican National Committee to "keep it secret, keep it safe," work on the new congressional maps began under lock and key in the Statehouse, the report found.

This email from a GOP staffer Heather Mann made it clear that four staffers being issued keys would be "the only persons with access to that office space."

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Booking a hotel room for the off-site headquarters

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League of Women Voters of Ohio and Common Cause Ohio

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Ray DiRossi, a GOP staffer assigned to work on the maps, received a $9,614.89 invoice for three months use of a downtown Double Tree hotel room, outside the hallways of the Statehouse.

The report concluded that the purpose of renting the hotel space appeared to be twofold: "to ensure that no one could gain access to the redistricting plans and to provide a place where those drawing the maps could meet with interested parties without being seen by other staff."

The two GOP staffers, DiRossi and Mann, later worked on the maps as outside contractors rather state employees, each paid $105,000, according to the report's findings.

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Hotel questions: why the secrecy?

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League of Women Voters of Ohio and Common Cause Ohio

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Among the questions the Double Tree hotel asked before booking was why the room would be used privately for three months, as shown by this email.

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It's called the "bunker"

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League of Women Voters of Ohio and Common Cause Ohio

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The off-site hotel room was later referred to as "the bunker," by DiRossi.

Shown above is an email from DiRossi to Matt Schuler, chief of staff to the GOP leader in the Senate, and Vaughn Flasher of the Capitol Strategies Group, a political consulting company, to relay information about an upcoming meeting with Sen. Gayle Manning, a Republican from North Ridgeville.

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John Boehner gets final say

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League of Women Voters of Ohio and Common Cause Ohio

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While the map-drawing process is the responsibility of the Ohio legislature, this email demonstrated that it was clear that John Boehner, Republican congressman from Cincinnati and then the Speaker of the House, held heavy influence.

In the email shown above, Ohio Senate President Tom Niehaus, a Republican from Clermont County, tells DiRossi and and Tom Whatman, executive director of Team Boehner, that he was "committed to ending up with a map that Speaker Boehner fully supports."

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The Timken change for "someone important to us all"

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League of Women Voters of Ohio and Common Cause Ohio

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These emails show Tom Whatman, executive director of Team Boehner making a last-minute request for "a small carve out" so Rep. Jim Renacci's congressional district would include the Timken headquarters in Canton, noting in a follow-up email that this change is "very important to someone important to us all."

Recipients of the email were the two paid mapping consultants and former GOP staffers, DiRossi and Mann, plus Adam Kincaid, redistricting coordinator for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

The report said no one lived in the area added to Renacci's district but that "those connected with Timken are major campaign contributors to Congressman Renacci."

The Canton Repository reported that from 2009 through 2011 Timken executives, their spouses, Timken board members and the Timken Co. Good Government Fund contributed at least $124,400 to Renacci.

Among those is Jane Timken, who has since been named chair of the Ohio Republican Party. She previously served as vice chairman of the Stark County GOP. Cleveland.com found in researching campaign donation records published at Political MoneyLine that she donated at least $17,400 to Renacci from 2010 through 2015.

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State senator helps locate Republicans in Lorain

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League of Women Voters of Ohio and Common Cause Ohio

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Sen. Gayle Manning, a Republican from North Ridgeville, offered help in identifying friendly Republican areas in Lorain - portions of the city in the Amherst school district - as shown by this email from Manning to DiRossi.

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Gerrymandered maps could save "millions" of dollars

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League of Women Voters of Ohio and Common Cause Ohio

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The map making went beyond gathering votes. Donations were analyzed in some cases.

The email shown above from Troy Judy, House majority chief of staff, ranked the new Ohio House districts based on donations.

DiRossi's response: "Hopefully saving millions over the coming years," though it is unclear from the email how the money would be saved.

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Using an index to rate districts D or R

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League of Women Voters of Ohio and Common Cause Ohio

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This document shows how a "Republican partisan index" was created for help in drawing districts that would result in Republicans being strong favorites to win 12 of Ohio's 16 congressional seats in each election, which is exactly what has happened during the elections with the new maps in 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018.

The index was calculated using results from the presidential election in 2008, and the statewide races in 2010 for governor, auditor and secretary of state.

Other emails during the process noted how much various changes in the maps would improve the indexes, breaking it down to hundredths of a percentage point.

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Make it easier to hold the GOP majority

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League of Women Voters of Ohio and Common Cause Ohio

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This analysis of districts for the Ohio House shows how the Republicans should expect to improve their majority as a result of the new district lines as proposed.

The email estimates the GOP could pick up one to nine seats in the Statehouse under various voting scenarios because of the new maps.

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Getting the maps approved

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Rich Exner, cleveland.com

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Rep. Matt Huffman, a Republican from Lima and chairman of the House Government and Elections Committee in 2011, scheduled a vote on the proposed maps before they were made public, according to the the League of Women Voters report. The maps cleared his committee within 24 hours of their release and the entire house within 48 hours.

After the Democrats threatened a petition drive for a voter referendum in an attempt to nullify the maps, some changes were made and a second set was approved by the House, 77-17, with 21 Democrats joining the Republicans in voting yes.

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Voters approve reform in May 2018

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Jackie Borchardt, cleveland.com

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Ohio voters took the historic step in May 2018 of overwhelmingly passing (75% to 25%) a bipartisan proposal aimed at creating fairer and more logical congressional districts.

Issue 1 amends the Ohio Constitution by putting rules in place, where none existed before, aimed at creating districts that make geographic sense - rather than districts designed solely with political gain in mind.

Then the proposal was placed on the ballot after bipartisan votes, 31-0 in the Ohio Senate and 83-10 in the Ohio House. Statehouse consideration for reform came as pressure for change mounted from media coverage of the issue and petition by pro-voting groups, including the Ohio Citizen Action and the Ohio League of Women Voters.

But this reform won't take place until after the 2020 election.

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Court case moves up the timetable for reform

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A three-judge federal panel unanimously ruled Friday that Ohio's gerrymandered congressional district map is unconstitutional, and ordered the creation of a new map in time for the 2020 election.

The state must enact a new, and legal, map for Ohio's 16 congressional districts by June 14, or face the possibility that the court will do so itself.

A new map likely would place in jeopardy the Republicans' stronghold on Ohio's congressional delegation. The current map approved in 2011 has worked exactly as planned, with the GOP winning the same 12 of Ohio's 16 congressional races in each election, despite overall receiving just over half of the votes cast for either Republicans or Democrats.

Two of the three federal judges making the ruling were appointed by Democratic presidents - Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. The other judge was appointed by Republican George W. Bush.

Ohio's Republican Attorney General Dave Yost said he will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, where decisions are expected soon for gerrymandering cases out of Maryland (brought by Republicans) and North Carolina (brought by Democrats).

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Rich Exner, data analysis editor for cleveland.com, writes about numbers on a variety of topics, including gerrymandering. Follow on Twitter @RichExner. Find data-related stories at cleveland.com/datacentral.