A Democrat-led drive to collect enough signatures to put the state's new congressional boundaries before voters appears to be relying on volunteer efforts only.COLUMBUS, Ohio — An Ohio Democratic Party-led petition drive aimed at blocking the state's newest congressional map is in jeopardy because a lack of money has ruled out hiring paid signature gatherers.
While the original Democratic plan was to hire a professional signature collection firm, Ohio Democratic Party officials have gone the all-volunteer route after funding for the effort has not materialized.
Ian James, CEO of Professional Petition Management, said his company was contracted in mid-October to do the petition work for Ohioans for Fair Districts. That's the official name for a group of Democratic officials working to overturn a congressional map passed this fall primarily by Republicans lawmakers. Democrats are upset because the newly-drawn congressional map has 12 solidly Republican districts and only four Democratic ones.
James said his paid agents collected only the first thousand valid signatures required to get the campaign off the launch pad because of a lack of funds from Ohioans for Fair Districts. The James gang has been the paid muscle behind nine successful statewide ballot drives since 2006 including part of the effort to get Senate Bill 5 on the ballot earlier this year.
"Unfortunately, the committee has been unable to raise the funds to fulfill the contract," James said. "So we had to put the committee on notice that without the funding while we are still willing and able to help, we are unable to do so."
Redfern acknowledged Democrats are going volunteer-only, and not using paid circulators.
"Are we using them today? No," said Redfern. "Could we use them tomorrow? Sure. It's about resources and volunteers. If you hit a threshold of volunteers to collect signatures without having to pay paid circulators, then you do that. It comes down to a business decision, and in this we are satisfied we have the number of volunteers on the ground to meet our goals."
The acknowledgment comes as House lawmakers appear to be stalemated over talks on a second compromise map that would avert the need for a ballot issue. The threat of a ballot drive had given Democrats enough leverage to force Republicans to come back to the negotiating table, but talks haven't netted much progress in recent weeks.
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Bob Bennett, a former Ohio Republican Party chief who was involved in back-channel negotiations over redistricting, said most top Republicans have long been skeptical that the Democrats can pull off a Christmas miracle. "There are some people that think the petitions are going to magically appear, but...it's impossible to do it with volunteers," he said. "You have to hire circulators."
Redfern said Democrats have collected about 135,000 signatures right now in roughly five weeks of signature-gathering by 1,000 volunteers, but declined to handicap the chances that his volunteer army can harvest 231,150 valid signatures by a Christmas Day deadline. "You work real hard and you stand out in front of libraries, and you talk to people and you gather signatures," Redfern said. "This is an extraordinarily challenging effort, but one that needs to be taken on."
Generally, successful ballot drives need to gather at least 400,000 signatures to get enough valid signatures to qualify an issue for the ballot. That would put Democrats about one-third of the way to the number of signatures needed with less than three weeks left--although state elections law would allow them at least several weeks extra time if they can muster the minimum needed by the Christmas Day deadline.
Redfern said Democrats may also head back to the Ohio Supreme Court to ask for more time to gather signatures. The Republican-dominated court declined to reset a 90-day clock for the Democratic petition push, which meant Democrats had only slightly longer than two months to get the ballot drive done.
The court ruled the clock began on Sept. 26, when the new map was slated to take effect, rather than Oct. 14, when the court unanimously ruled that the map was subject to a statewide vote.
"We are contemplating filing paperwork before the Supreme Court to ask them to reconsider the 90-day window issue," Redfern said. "We are not there yet in terms of making that decision."
James said Democrats most likely don't have the time needed to get the needed signatures using just volunteers. "I think it's going to be very difficult to get the signatures for this issue in the timeframe they have been given and considering the weather," James said. "Not impossible, but it's going to be very difficult and challenging."
Stephen Brooks, a University of Akron associate professor and the associate director of the Bliss Institute of Applied Politics, agreed that Democrats are "facing a number of major challenges" to qualify the issue for the ballot using only volunteers.
"Getting the correct number of signatures is difficult and the ones that tend to be the most successful are the ones that use paid folks and have a relatively large volunteer base," he said. Brooks said that the partisan nature of the debate over redistricting also hurts Democrats signatures gathering efforts.
"Our political environment right now is that neither party is held in great favor by the public," he said. "With the state of the American public today anything that has political motives is considered suspect."
Nonetheless, some Democrats remain optimistic. Rep. Kathleen Clyde, a Portage County Democrat who is one of the members of Ohioans for Fair Districts, said she thinks the volunteer effort is going very well in her rural county. "This petition signs itself," she said. "The average Ohioan can tell this is a terrible map."
While Redfern declined to discuss what his back-up plan would be if the signature-gathering failed, a coalition of groups has begun talk about a potential constitutional amendment to redo the process.
The group, which involves members of Citizen Action, the League of Women Voters, and ProgressOhio, are hoping to radically reshape Ohio's once-a-decade redistricting process so that compact and competitive districts are the standard for the maps drawn in Ohio. They've held a meeting with Redfern and have one planned soon with Ohio Republican Party Chief Kevin DeWine hoping to draw some reform-minded Republicans into the fold.
Such an effort at a constitutional amendment would have the advantage of being able to gather signatures at a more leisurely pace instead of being under the time crunch that Democrats face in their current petition drive.