The resolution would create a seven-member commission to draw all maps, and at least one minority party member would have to approve the boundaries.

The House isn’t expected to act on the proposal and that chamber’s vote is needed to put the measure before voters.

Sen. Frank LaRose, a co-sponsor, said the Senate plan could serve as a roadmap for discussion next year.

Voters rejected a ballot proposal to revise Ohio’s redistricting process in November. LaRose said the issue failed because of flaws, not because people didn’t want to see the process change.

Thursday was the last scheduled voting day for the state Legislature.

Opponents of the redistricting amendment – the Ohio Republican Party, along with business and socially conservative groups – raised more than $7 million to fight it.

Coalition spokesman Carlo LoParo says everyone agrees that the map drawing process can be improved, and this complicated and convoluted issue didn’t do it.

“The voters took a look at the issue and decided it’s not a better solution than the current plan. If we improve the system, we should at least improve the part of the system that everybody has a concern with,” LoParo said.

Issue 2 was backed by Democrats and union groups. Spokesman Brian Rothenberg says the other side ran a deceptive campaign, but it wasn’t a waste.

“They admitted there is a problem with the system. And the day will come when people will have a voice in their government again,” said Rothenberg.

Rothenberg says now Issue 2’s supporters will pressure lawmakers to have conversations on how to change redistricting now, and not wait till the next maps are drawn.

Voter’s First, the group that wants Ohioans to approve a ballot measure that would change the way congressional and legislative district lines are drawn, is putting an ad on television stations statewide.

Voters First spokesman Brian Rothenberg says he knows the proposed citizen’s initiative plan is being outspent by Issue 2 opponents, but he still thinks the issue could win at the ballot box.

“There’s still a large amount of undecided voters. They’ve never moved from that top tier area. It’s actually got the most undecided voters in the state of Ohio. And now we are going toe to toe with these folks.”

“And when you look at the fact that our progressive base, I know the Democratic party has endorsed this in many counties, those folks are ahead on early voting when you look at the presidential election information. It actually says that we might be in a stronger position than anybody thought we were, and here we are with two weeks to go and we’ve got an excellent opportunity to win.”

The Ohio Democratic Party and unions advocating on behalf of Democratic candidates and causes are urging voters to vote for the new plan. Rothenberg won’t say how much his group intends to spend on the new ads, or who is paying for them.

Here’s the new ad:

“Well, I think the ad is extremely deceptive,” says Carlo LaParo, a spokeman for “Protect Your Vote”, the main group opposing the constitutional change.

LaParo says the ad doesn’t explain that some politicians and lobbyists would still be allowed to serve on the board that would draw the lines if voters would approve the plan.

But he doesn’t think that’s likely to happen anyway.

“The more voters hear about this deeply flawed and convoluted proposal, the less they like it.”

LaParo notes most every newspaper in the state has written editorials against the proposed amendment and he adds many interest groups are also against it.

The Ohio Ballot Board agreed in a party-line vote Thursday to new ballot language for Issue 2. The vote came a day after the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that the wording was incomplete and inaccurate.

Secretary of State Jon Husted’s office proposed adding paragraphs of exact phrasing from the amendment. Democrats and the group behind the proposal said a more concise, clear summary was possible.

Husted said that approach risked not pleasing the court and delaying distribution of ballots in the key battleground state.

The proposal shifts power for drawing Ohio’s legislative and congressional districts from elected officials to an appointed 12-member commission.

Ohio’s elections chief on Thursday reconvened the panel that approves ballot language after the Ohio Supreme Court scolded the board for poorly wording a fall ballot issue on redistricting.

Husted called an emergency meeting of the state Ballot Board to rewrite Issue 2 within hours of the court’s ruling. Justices ruled that the panel’s chosen language for describing what the constitutional amendment does was inaccurate and incomplete.

The turn of events followed a lawsuit filed by Voters First, the group that wants to change Ohio’s process for determining state legislative and federal congressional districts.

The group argued that the board’s original wording left out key elements of its proposal, and the court agreed.

The amendment creates a 12-member panel through a multistage process.

That involves an application process, the Chief Justice selecting a bipartisan group of appellate judges to winnow the field to 42, a chance for lawmakers of both parties to reject some of their choices, and then a lottery to choose the first nine commission members from three pools.

Three would be from the majority political party, three from the minority and three unaffiliated. Those nine people would select the final three panelists, again one of each party and one unaffiliated.

The amendment also calls for the commission’s records to be public and its meetings to be open, and it establishes some parameters for setting up a budget. It establishes goals for establishing the districts, adding a caveat that they must comply with existing the state and federal laws and constitutions.

The ballot language as approved last month stated the amendment would “remove the authority of elected representatives and grant new authority to appointed officials” to create the maps – a key talking point of the issue’s opponents. It described the commission as being created “from a limited pool of applicants” – without describing how the pool would be selected.

The high court said this language was flawed because it said nothing about who would do the appointing or the rules for doing it. (They also noted that an appointment process might not be any less political than one involving elected officials.)

Board-approved language also took time to note that the budget the General Assembly would establish for the commission could be spent on “legal counsel” and “consultants.”

A point added at the urging of the opponent group Protect Your Vote Ohio said the issue would “change the standards and requirements in the Constitution” for drawing the lines. The court said this point was offered “instead of specifying any of the pertinent criteria that the commission must follow in redistricting.”

“Because this subject matter strikes at the very core of the proposed amendment, the board’s condensed ballot statement does not fairly and accurately present the issue to be decided…” they wrote.

Justices said the language could at least mention the proposed process intends to maximize the number of political balanced districts, balance those leaning toward either political party and avoid favoring or disfavoring any particular party.

The court rejected other areas of Voters First’s legal arguments against the ballot language.

Republicans who’ve written the summary, though, insist it’s fair and impartial. Click the play button above for Statehouse correspondent Bill Cohen’s report on Wednesda’s action by the state ballot board.

The supporters of the plan already have their mantra: “People, Not Politicians.”

Now opponents of the plan have a mantra of their own: “Protect Your Vote.”

“As the weeks roll on here and people become more aware of this redistricting issue, they will find that this is very important,” says Jenny Camper, who’s working with the group opposing the redistricting changes. “It will determine whether voters are going to have accountability in their redistricting process, whether they are going to have an ethical redistricting process.”

Camper says opponents of the plan will talk about its flaws. She says the plan leaves the legislature holding the bag to pay for the costs of the process…something that could prove to be expensive. And she says it replaces elected officials with a board over which citizens have no control.

“It moves Ohio’s redistricting from a system of accountability to a system with really little or no accountability.”

But Catherine Turcer, a supporter of Voter’s First, the group that’s backing this proposed constitutional amendment, says she’s not surprised that Republicans who are in charge of the process right now are going to fight the plan she’s pushing.

“We are in a winner takes all system and that means whoever is in charge draws the lines to benefit themselves and their friends. What we want to do is create a system where independents, Republicans and Democrats all have a voice.”

Turcer says there diversity of the commission insures that no one political party can control the process.

“What we are talking about is an incredible systemic reform that takes the power away from those people who drew the lines, who rigged the district lines and in effect, rigged our elections.”

As far as accountability, Turcer says the lines for the current maps were drawn by Republican operatives in a secret location in a Columbus hotel. And she notes thousands of dollars went into fees for those operatives and that hotel room. Turcer says the public had no input in that process until it was already completed.

The state’s ballot board will meet next week to consider the language that will appear on ballots.

The Voters First coalition needed to submit roughly 385,000 valid signatures to make the ballot but fell short by more than 130,000 in its initial effort. It filed thousands of additional signatures last week.

Secretary of State Jon Husted said Monday that nearly 152,000 additional valid signatures were collected. That means a total of more than 406,000 valid signatures have been certified and met the necessary requirements.

The Voters First proposal aims to take away map-drawing powers from elected officials and put them in the hands of a 12-person citizen commission.

The Ohio Republican Party is fighting the measure. A party spokeswoman says given broad powers to unelected citizens amounts to taxation without representation.

But Ohio’s Republican Party is fiercely fighting that plan.

Opponents of the current method for drawing lines for congressional and statehouse districts have presented nearly 400,000 more petition signatures to the Ohio Secretary of State’s office.

The groups needs close to 386,000 valid signatures, and only about 255,000 of the signatures the group had submitted earlier turned out to be deemed valid. If about 132,000 of the new signatures are ruled to be good, the group will be able to put the issue before voters.

But Izzy Santa with the Ohio Republican Party says she’s skeptical.

“Given all of the fraud they have committed with petition circulators, allowing family members to sign on behalf of others who aren’t present, we are very suspicious of the signatures they have submitted.”

Backers of the redistricting proposal say those incidents were isolated, involving just a few paid signature collectors. And, the group notes, those signatures were thrown out.

But even if enough of the new signatures are eventually certified, Santa doesn’t think Ohioans will want to vote for the plan.

“Voters essentially want accountability in their government and this proposal strips that by forming an unelected commission that doesn’t answer to anyone. And on top of that, it gives them a blank check. I don’t know how that’s good government by any means.”

But a backer of changing the current line drawing system, Dan Tokaji, says Santa’s complaints could easily be made about the current redistricting process that benefits the party in charge.

In this case, the Republicans.

“They talk about a blank check,” Tokaji says, “but the reality of it is that our politicians and their cronies spent almost 10 thousand dollars reserving a secret hotel room almost right next to where we are standing now so that no one could see who is going in and out.

“They paid 210,000 dollars off the books to two of their staffers off the books so that they could draw their maps in the secret bunker.”

Tokaji says Republicans don’t like this proposed change because politicians could no longer rule the process.

“We’ve already seen the opposition use confusion to try to muck things up. But we are confident our simple and clear message will get through. This is about putting power where it belongs in the hands of we the people, taking it away from politicians and their cronies. That is what the voters first initiative is all about.”

It’s believed that the current maps give Republicans a big advantage in congressional races, with 12 of the 16 districts drawn in a way that the districts will likely go for GOP candidates.

In legislative races, it’s expected the lines are drawn in a way that will let the current Republican majority in the Statehouse retain control for the next decade.

The state alters legislative and U.S. House district boundaries every 10 years to reflect population shifts. New maps were put in place for this year’s elections.

The Voters First coalition has submitted more than 430,000 signatures to get its constitutional amendment before voters in November. It needs more than 385,000 valid signatures.

Among other issues, the GOP claims a paid circulator was found lying about the number of signatures.

Voters First said in a statement that two circulators were removed after the group learned of problems. The group also described the GOP’s accusations as desperate.

The Voters First constitutional amendment would create a 12 member citizens’ commission that would draw the boundaries for state House and Senate districts as well as Congressional districts.

Politicians, lobbyists and political donors wouldn’t be permitted to serve on that panel. Catherine Turcer is the chair of Voters First.

“These people are held accountable to the constitution in the same way that elected officials are. And so they are given specific parameters like compactness and competitiveness. They are held accountable by the constitution in the same way that elected officials are,” said Turcer.

The Libertarian Party of Ohio has endorsed the proposal – perhaps in part because four members of the commission will be independents, and that could open the door to bringing libertarians into the map-drawing process.

The other 8 seats on the commission would be divided equally between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats are supportive of the plan – but it should be noted that the party has been in the majority in the Ohio House for only two years out of the past 17 years, and has been in the minority in the Senate for two decades.

After the Congressional map were drawn last time in 2001, 11 Republicans and eight Democrats were elected. Now there are just 16 seats – and it’s thought they’ll be occupied by 12 Republicans and four Democrats.

Chris Redfern is the chair of the Ohio Democratic Party. He says while the party is focused on electing its candidates, it supports changing the map drawing system.

“The fact of the matter is that a fair districting process involving citizens takes power away from the hands of those that will reap more power if they control the pen.”

When asked about whether the proposal would strip power from Democrats when they’re in power, Redfern said “Doesn’t that make sense? No, because I’m right on the issues.”

But the Ohio Republican Party has serious concerns.

Spokesperson Izzy Santa notes that many of the groups involved in the Voters First campaign tend to be left-leaning and progressive.

“Essentially, what liberal organizations are proposing is with this proposal is taxation without representation. Let’s create an unelected commission with unlimited access to taxpayer dollars to decide the way the maps are drawn in Ohio. And that is a very dangerous proposition,” said Santa.

And Santa adds that there is a bipartisan redistricting reform task force in the works in the legislature, and she says that’s the better way to go.

“Liberal groups are saying this is the way we want it, and this is the way it’s going to be. And that does not give us any faith that they’re actually going to create a bipartisan task force in the future.”

Santa calls the Voters First amendment – using her words – “a convoluted mess of an idea for redistricting reform.”

Voters First chair Catherine Turcer responds this way:

“You know what’s really simple? Having them go into their back rooms and draw lines to their own advantage. It takes a little more work to think about a citizens’ commission. But it’s not complicated.”

Santa says the Republican Party has also seen videos showing Voters First circulators signing up family members and out of state residents, and that leads her to suspect the signatures that have been gathered.

Turcer says those signature gatherers who appear to not be following elections law have been fired, and that she’s confident the verification process will prove most of the coalition’s signatures are valid.