Opinion ID: 6103646
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Undue partisan favoritism

Text: {¶ 152} By any measure, petitioners have failed to meet their burden to establish a violation of the Constitution’s requirement that a plan not unduly favor a political party. {¶ 153} Begin with a point of agreement by all: of Ohio’s 15-seat allotment, six districts will be “solidly Republican” and two will be “solidly Democratic,” majority opinion at ¶ 43. The two blue districts encompass Cleveland and Columbus. The six red districts occupy more rural regions of the state. These eight nonnegotiable districts are the result of political geography—Republican voters 58 January Term, 2022 disperse more uniformly about the state while Democratic voters cluster in urban centers—and only an extreme gerrymander could alter this arrangement. {¶ 154} The present dispute involves the seven remaining congressional districts. Accompanying the General Assembly’s enacted plan is a statement declaring that the seven districts in question were drawn to be “competitive.” Our analysis proceeds as follows: (1) the maximization of competitive districts is a permissible goal under Article XIX, (2) this plan attempts to create competitive districts, (3) the General Assembly’s determination of competitiveness was reasonable, and therefore, (4) the plan does not violate Section 1(C)(3)(a) of Article XIX. 1. It is permissible to draw competitive districts {¶ 155} Since the founding, congressional districting has been the province of state legislatures. See Rucho, 588 U.S. at __, 139 S.Ct. at 2495-2496, 204 L.Ed.2d 931. Article XIX of the Ohio Constitution provides neutral districting guidelines in Section 2(B) and places additional restrictions on four-year maps in Section 1(C)(3) but is largely discretion-conferring on the legislature (or redistricting commission). {¶ 156} Generally, those seeking to end partisan gerrymandering have leveled two primary criticisms. First, they claim that partisan gerrymandering unfairly entrenches one political party in power by drawing lines that maximize that party’s political representation. {¶ 157} Second, critics assert that partisan gerrymandering deprives voters of meaningful elections by creating districts with lopsided majorities of voters of one political persuasion or the other. Doing so depresses voter interest and turnout because voters don’t feel as if their votes matter. Drawing districts in this manner discourages political compromise and leads to increased polarization. This is because when a district is heavily Democratic or Republican, there is no need from an electoral standpoint for a candidate (or sitting representative) to appeal to the 59 SUPREME COURT OF OHIO minority. The most important election is often the primary. See Jeffrey S. Sutton, Who Decides? States As Laboratories of Constitutional Experimentation 18 (2022) (“If we make nearly 90% of congressional districts safe for one political party or the other, that makes the party primaries nearly the only elections that matter, elections that occur long before the first Tuesday after November 1”). Rather than cater to the median, moderate voter, a candidate (or representative) is incentivized to appeal only to his or her own political base. {¶ 158} These criticisms suggest two very different objectives that one might have in crafting a redistricting plan. To deal with the first, one could try to create a redistricting map that would ensure something akin to proportional representation. The idea would be to create a map that guarantees representatives who mirror as closely as possible the partisan makeup of the state. This is the objective sought by petitioners in these cases. {¶ 159} To deal with the second criticism, though, mapmakers would need to create as many closely divided (or competitive) districts as possible. This is the objective that the General Assembly purports to have pursued. {¶ 160} The rub is that to a large degree, the objectives are mutually exclusive. If mapmakers want to ensure representation that looks like the partisan makeup of the state, then they need to draw districts that are certain to favor one side or the other. But if they want to maximize competitive districts, then they need to draw districts that they aren’t sure which side will win. Rucho, 588 U.S. at __, 139 S.Ct. at 2500, 204 L.Ed.2d 931. {¶ 161} In this case, the legislative respondents assert that they sought to maximize competitive districts. The first question we must answer is whether this is permissible under Article XIX. We are convinced that it is. {¶ 162} We begin with the obvious. In the abstract, congressional districts that are competitive, by definition, do not unduly favor or disfavor a political party. The entire idea behind drawing competitive districts is to afford candidates from 60 January Term, 2022 either party legitimate chances of election, to place the political power with the electorate, where it belongs. {¶ 163} Competitive districts are in some ways the opposite of gerrymandered districts. The prototypical gerrymander involves “packing” certain districts in order to “crack” others. The stratagem is to concede a few districts by maximal margins in order to win more districts by narrower margins. In districts drawn to be competitive, the winner won’t be known until the polls are closed and the votes tallied. This is democracy as we know it. Competitive districts are widely considered a laudable objective, the sort of objective voters desire; they do not unduly favor or disfavor political parties but allow the electorate to elect. {¶ 164} That is not to say that the text of Article XIX mandates that mapmakers maximize competitive districts. Indeed, unlike Article XI, Section 6(B), nothing in Article XIX prescribes the General Assembly’s goal in drawing congressional maps. The Article XIX provisions at issue impose negative restraints—what not to do. That leaves map-drawers tremendous leeway to target various goals in executing that function. {¶ 165} Petitioners’ experts have introduced statistical measures designed to approximate one concept of fairness. They all use as their baseline the idea that a plan is fair when it achieves a result that resembles proportional representation. One such measure is the “efficiency gap”—the comparative measure of wasted votes, votes cast toward a losing candidate or unnecessarily toward a winning candidate. See majority opinion at ¶ 63. In a perfectly efficient map, there would be no wasted votes and proportional representation would be achieved—a party’s representation in Congress would exactly match its percentage of the statewide vote. Another measure used by petitioners’ experts is partisan symmetry, an explicit measure of proportional representation that compares a party’s statewide vote share to the percentage of districts it holds. We are also told about the “meanmedian gap” and “declination,” other measures that are similarly based on a 61 SUPREME COURT OF OHIO proportional-representation ideal. See id. at ¶ 63 (defining the measures). Had the General Assembly sought to optimize any or several of these measures, we have little doubt that such a plan would satisfy constitutional standards. And so too would a plan that sought to maximize proportionally representative congressional districts. {¶ 166} But there is nothing in the Ohio Constitution that mandates any of these things as a goal. And there is nothing in the Constitution that precludes mapmakers from seeking to maximize competitive districts. Thus, we conclude that the General Assembly did not violate the Constitution by prioritizing the creation of competitive districts over other objectives, such as achieving proportional representation. 2. The General Assembly pursued competitive districts {¶ 167} The General Assembly found that the plan contains “seven competitive districts.” 2021 Sub.S.B. No. 258, Section 3. When the governor signed the bill, he stated: “With seven competitive congressional districts in the SB 258 map, this map significantly increases the number of competitive districts versus the [2011] map.” Governor of Ohio News Releases, Governor DeWine Signs Senate Bill 258, https://governor.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/governor/media/newsand-media/governor-dewine-signs-senate-bill-258-11222021 (accessed Jan. 12, 2022) [https://perma.cc/7QFL-ZSYY]. A majority of both houses of the legislature joined by the state’s chief executive officer thus agree that the seven districts in question are competitive. {¶ 168} The majority asserts that “competitiveness was offered here as a post hoc rationalization.” Majority opinion at ¶ 45. But nothing in the record backs that up. Before drawing up the plan, Senate President Huffman and Senators Rob McColley, Vernon Sykes, and others heard public testimony regarding congressional redistricting. Among the topics debated was defining “competitive.” During that debate, a representative of Fair Districts Ohio said: “[T]here are going 62 January Term, 2022 to be tradeoffs. But just because there’s a creation of a few more competitive districts, that doesn’t mean that those districts aren’t compact, don’t keep counties together.” Later, Senator Sykes asked another citizen what in terms of percentages he “consider[ed] to be competitive.” House Speaker Cupp expressed concern that championing competitive districts might lead to increased polarization within districts. {¶ 169} The person primarily responsible for drawing the eventually enacted map, Raymond DiRossi, stated in a deposition: “[T]here was a tremendous amount of public testimony about the existence of competitive districts and what type of range would be used to determine what was a competitive district. And I know [Senator McColley] had put a lot of thought into that.” Later he explained, “[T]hat’s the point, that we’re trying to draw competitive districts now; whereas, the [2011] map doesn’t have them.” {¶ 170} All of this goes to demonstrate that competitive districts were front of mind for the General Assembly before and during the map-drawing process. The majority may prefer a different objective—namely, proportional representation— but competition within districts is the valid interest respondents have always asserted to justify the enacted plan. 3. The determination of competitiveness was reasonable {¶ 171} Still there remains a question of fact whether the seven districts under review actually are competitive. The majority opinion correctly observes that Article XIX does not “prescribe[ ]” competitiveness, nor define it, and we are “forbid[den]” from “adding to the text.” Majority opinion at ¶ 45. Because we agree with the majority that “Article XIX itself does not    provide any calculable measure for it,” id., competitiveness is not this court’s measure to define. {¶ 172} We are guided by a “ ‘universally recognized principle’ ” by which this court has long abided: 63 SUPREME COURT OF OHIO “[A] court has nothing to do with the policy or wisdom of a statute. That is the exclusive concern of the legislative branch of the government. When the validity of a statute is challenged on constitutional grounds, the sole function of the court is to determine whether it transcends the limits of legislative power.” Brady v. Safety-Kleen Corp., 61 Ohio St.3d 624, 632, 576 N.E.2d 722 (1991) (plurality opinion), quoting State ex rel. Bishop v. Mt. Orab Village School Dist. Bd. of Edn., 139 Ohio St. 427, 438, 40 N.E.2d 913 (1942). Just as with congressional redistricting, the General Assembly is “entrusted with making complicated decisions about our state’s educational policy,” State ex rel. Ohio Congress of Parents & Teachers v. State Bd. of Edn., 111 Ohio St.3d 568, 2006Ohio-5512, 857 N.E.2d 1148, ¶ 73. In that realm we have said, “[P]olicy decisions are within the purview of [the General Assembly’s] legislative responsibilities, and that legislation is entitled to deference.” Id. That principle of deference to legislative prerogatives must apply with equal force to the congressional-district plan before us today. {¶ 173} The General Assembly chose to define a competitive district as one within 4 percent of a coin flip. A district with a projected 53-47 partisan split, in either direction, is considered competitive. A 55-45 split is not. Senator McColley and Senate President Huffman, the lead sponsors of the districting plan, arrived at this number after taking considerable public testimony. What’s important for judicial-review purposes, though, is that plus or minus 4 percent is the range that the General Assembly as a legislative body countenanced by enacting this map “in the form of a bill,” Article XIX, Section 1(C)(1), Ohio Constitution. {¶ 174} In determining the partisan propensity of a district, the drafters of the enacted plan relied upon a data set (“the FEDEA index”) comprised of all the statewide federal elections that occurred in the last decade: the 2012, 2016, and 64 January Term, 2022 2020 presidential elections and the 2012, 2016, and 2018 senatorial contests. The plan also took measures to, when feasible, avoid splitting counties and placing two incumbents in the same district (“double bunking”). {¶ 175} The result was a congressional-district plan with seven—the maximum—competitive districts, by the General Assembly’s definition, with 14 total county splits and one doubly bunked district that contains two incumbents.12 To be thorough, the seven FEDEA competitive districts are District 1 (51.5-48.5%), District 6 (52.9-47.1%), District 9 (47.7-52.3%), District 10 (52.2-47.8%), District 13 (48.6-51.4%), District 14 (53.2-46.8%), and District 15 (53.7-46.3%). Of the seven competitive districts, two are plus or minus 2 percent, five are plus or minus 3 percent, and all are plus or minus 3.75 percent. And Democratic candidates have fared well recently in these seven competitive districts. Out of the six statewide federal elections since 2012, a Democratic candidate has won in each district, in some districts securing more than 59 percent of the vote. Competitive indeed. {¶ 176} For reference, the other plans presented to the legislature included fewer competitive districts. The House and Senate minority party offered separate plans, each with just five competitive districts. {¶ 177} Petitioners respond that plus or minus 4 percent is an arbitrary measure of competitiveness and that FEDEA is not the best index. On the first score, of course the measure (like any such measure) contains a degree of arbitrariness. That is precisely why judicial intervention is unwarranted. The General Assembly, this state’s policymaking body, chose that range. We have no authority or competence to monitor the dividing line between competitive and not. Would a plus-or-minus-3-percent boundary have produced more competition? Of course. Does the Constitution mandate that? Of course not. 12. Two congressmen currently live in the new District 1, but Congressman Brad Wenstrup has announced that he will contend for the District 2 seat. No Democratic congressmen were double bunked. 65 SUPREME COURT OF OHIO {¶ 178} The General Assembly purported to draw seven competitive districts and defined competitive as within 4 percent of 50/50. All that we as judges can say is that based on the record before us, using plus or minus 4 percent as the determinative measure was not unreasonable. Had the General Assembly chosen an inflated number, say plus or minus 15 percent, then we could fairly intervene to call it unreasonable as a matter of law to define as “competitive” a projected 65-35percent district. We must remember that the FEDEA index supplies ex ante projections, not ex post results. The index does not take into account the relative political experience and ability of the candidates running vis-à-vis the past elections, changes to national and statewide circumstances and attitude, party platform, control over the White House, and dozens of additional factors—all the way down to gas prices—that can sway a given election regardless of what the data predict. To this point, one expert reports that “in the 2020 congressional election, the actual results in Ohio’s sixteen congressional districts varied, on average, by 5.8 percentage points from the average of the 2011-2020 partisan index,” including variances upwards of 15 percentage points. Exhibit No. 36, Expert Report of Dr. Michael Barber at 18. {¶ 179} And lawmakers routinely make line-drawing decisions akin to the plus-or-minus-4-percent line. Think budgetary decisions. The General Assembly allocates funds. Is the decision to allocate $1 million instead of $1.2 million “arbitrary” in one sense of the word? Yes. But is it arbitrary in the judicial-review sense—i.e., arbitrary and capricious as a matter of law? Again, of course not. Or think speed limits. Why 35 miles per hour and not 30? Why is 270 days the statutory limit to conduct a speedy felony trial? See R.C. 2945.71(C)(2). Why not 250 days? The point is this: drawing policy-oriented lines is at the heart of the legislative power. Vieth, 541 U.S. at 291, 124 S.Ct. 1769, 158 L.Ed.2d 546. Save for unreasonableness, the judiciary is to steer clear. 66 January Term, 2022 {¶ 180} The majority and petitioners do not contend, and experts have not reported, that 4 percent is too wide a margin to qualify as competitive. Suffice it to say that defining “competitive” as within 4 percent of dead even is not unreasonable as a matter of law. {¶ 181} Then comes the refrain that the FEDEA index is flawed, that other indices provided a more accurate account of where voter sentiments lie. The chief complaint seems to be that by using only federal elections, the index omits the statewide elections that occurred in 2014. But we are hard-pressed as judges to say that the legislature was wrong in choosing to use federal-election data to predict voter tendencies in federal elections. Indeed, one might reasonably argue that including 2014 state-election data would skew the data set. After all, that year it was revealed that the Democratic gubernatorial candidate did not have an Ohio driver’s license,13 leading to an election in which he received only 33 percent of the vote.14 The down-ballot races followed suit with the Democratic candidates for attorney general, secretary of state, treasurer, and auditor receiving 38.5, 35.5, 43.4, and 38.3 percent, respectively. 2014 Elections Results, https://www.ohiosos.gov/elections/election-results-and-data/2014-electionsresults/?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=5BNyaJhQ5eJBu.i7qqj_uZJzFJrSNgYduJ.hClWxz vA-1641919620-0-gaNycGzNCP0 (accessed Jan. 12, 2022). {¶ 182} Importantly, in contrast to Article XI, which tells the redistricting commission exactly what type of election data to use in drawing a General Assembly-district plan, see Article XI, Sections 6(B) and 9(D)(3)(c)(i), Ohio Constitution, the congressional-redistricting amendment, Article XIX, is silent on 13. See https://www.toledoblade.com/State/2014/08/06/Ohio-candidate-lacked-driver-s-licensefor-decade.html (accessed Jan. 12, 2022) [https://perma.cc/S7HM-YWVW]. 14. See https://www.ohiosos.gov/elections/election-results-and-data/2014-elections-results/? __cf_chl_jschl_tk__=5BNyaJhQ5eJBu.i7qqj_uZJzFJrSNgYduJ.hClWxzvA-1641919620-0- gaNycGzNCP0 (accessed Jan. 12, 2022). 67 SUPREME COURT OF OHIO that issue. The point is not that we need to resolve the debate about whose data set is better but, rather, that this is exactly the kind of question that is entrusted to the General Assembly, not to the courts. {¶ 183} Drs. Christopher Warshaw, Kosuke Imai, and Jowei Chen all say that the plan could have been even more competitive. No doubt this is true. But bring in any group of expert economists, and they will tell you that the tax code is suboptimal. Environmental scientists will report that the pollution laws are inadequate. And criminologists will demonstrate that the sentencing laws do not minimize recidivism. {¶ 184} Legislating is—and was designed to be—an act of give-and-take, compromise. See Hamilton, The Federalist No. 85. The question we must answer is not whether the plan is optimally competitive. It is whether the plan is sufficiently competitive to avoid violating the Constitution’s prohibition of undue favoritism. And we are guided by the principles of legislative deference this court has long honored in policy-oriented matters. {¶ 185} The General Assembly determined that the FEDEA data comprise an appropriate index of district competitiveness. And it gave its reasons. The FEDEA index (which, recall, factors in recent statewide elections to federal office) was used because the plan is for a federal election. The General Assembly chose a data set that is smaller but, in its determination, more precise than others available. Electoral data including statewide elections to state offices risked incorporating inputs irrelevant to federal elections: purely local voter motivations. Presidents and senators face the same issues with which U.S. representatives must grapple, but that is not the case for governors and state auditors. {¶ 186} We cannot say that the General Assembly acted unreasonably by enacting a plan based on the FEDEA index. The Constitution does not prohibit the legislature from making the determination that it made. That leaves us no reason 68 January Term, 2022 to quibble with the legislature’s determination that the plan creates seven competitive districts. 4. The majority’s flawed analysis {¶ 187} Our deferential approach looks nothing like the majority’s. This is because the majority undertakes the legislative act of evaluating the plan from a policy-oriented perspective, not a legal one. The majority’s approach is undergirded by an “instinct” that proportionality is the essence of fairness, Rucho, 588 U.S. at __, 139 S.Ct. at 2499, 204 L.Ed.2d 931. But, as we have explained, nothing within Article XIX mandates proportional representation as a standard against which a plan should be measured. To the contrary, proportional representation is a “ ‘norm that does not exist’ in our electoral system” generally, id., quoting Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U.S. 109, 159, 106 S.Ct. 2797, 92 L.Ed.2d 85 (1986) (O’Connor, J., concurring), or in Article XIX specifically. In assuming that proportional representation is the ideal, the majority ignores the fact that such a norm “comes at the expense of competitive districts and of individuals in districts allocated to the opposing party,” id. at __, 139 S.Ct. at 2500. The General Assembly and respondents never proclaimed to have sought proportionality; they pursued the alternative but equally permissible goal of competitive districts. {¶ 188} The majority concludes that the plan favors the Republican Party unduly—to a degree “exceeding what is warranted by Article XIX’s line-drawing requirements and Ohio’s political geography,” majority opinion at ¶ 41—by looking across an array of measures: expected performance, treatment of selected counties, and statistical measures of partisanship. We are not told which one of these considerations is conclusive but are told to trust that taken altogether, the map is unconstitutional. {¶ 189} As far as the plan’s expected performance, the majority highlights expert reports submitted by petitioners that it claims show that “the enacted plan is not nearly as competitive as Senate President Huffman and House Speaker Cupp 69 SUPREME COURT OF OHIO claim that it is.” Id. at ¶ 46. It cites reports of three of petitioners’ experts that predict that Republicans will win 12 seats under the plan and another report predicting that Republicans will win 11 seats. Some experts factored in an “incumbency advantage” in their predictions. (One has to wonder about the logic that says a district should not be characterized as “competitive” because it contains an incumbent who is popular with voters in a district.) Two of the experts cited by the majority prepared simulated maps that they contend show that the enacted plan is a statistical outlier favoring Republicans. None of these maps, however, have been submitted as part of the record, so we are little able to evaluate them. Another flaw, most of these experts used election results from statewide elections instead of the FEDEA data set relied on by the legislature. {¶ 190} The majority leans heavily on the expert report of the Harvard statistician Dr. Imai, for his report is based on the FEDEA index. But Dr. Imai’s report suffers a more fundamental defect. His hypothetical districts were not equipopulous. In generating 5,000 simulated maps based on FEDEA data, Dr. Imai allowed for up to “0.5% deviation from population parity,” or roughly a 4,000person variance. Expert Report of Kosuke Imai, Ph.D. In accordance with Article XIX, Section 2(A)(2), however, the General Assembly constructed districts varying by no more than one person—that’s a 0.00013% deviation, one ten-thousandth of a percentage point. Achieving absolute population equality in congressional districts is, after all, a “paramount objective of apportionment.” Karcher v. Daggett, 462 U.S. 725, 732-733, 103 S.Ct. 2653, 77 L.Ed.2d 133 (1983). To compare Dr. Imai’s maps to the enacted plan (as is central to the majority’s analysis) is rather like comparing watermelons to walnuts. {¶ 191} Abruptly, the majority transitions from summarizing the expert evidence to announcing that it “conclude[s] that the body of petitioners’ various expert evidence significantly outweighs the evidence offered by respondents as to both sufficiency and credibility, compelling beyond any reasonable doubt the 70 January Term, 2022 conclusion that the enacted plan excessively and unwarrantedly favors the Republican Party and disfavors the Democratic Party.” Majority opinion at ¶ 51. This is not legal analysis; it is cherry-picking evidence from an expansive record to meet policy preferences, crediting it, and regurgitating the language of a generic holding based on an illegitimate legal standard. More is required. {¶ 192} Indeed, the majority’s focus on expected performance underscores that it is simply assessing the plan for how closely it comes to achieving proportional representation. The expert reports pertaining to expected performance are couched as “conclusions” but are better described as informed predictions. The unspoken reality is that the majority clings to expected-performance reports because they predict that statewide votes per party may not perfectly correlate with seats elected per party. But the Constitution does not require such a correlation. The majority also fails to account for the fact that political geography dictates the outcome of eight out of 15 districts. Moreover, because the seven remaining districts are competitive, there is no guarantee that even the predictions of experts will turn out to be accurate. {¶ 193} With respect to competitiveness, these extrapolations at most establish that the districts could have been more competitive. Nowhere do the reports establish that the enacted districts are uncompetitive. To do so would require evidence that a 4 percent variance is too wide or the FEDEA data too misleading. Even Dr. Imai’s flawed report, in which the majority is so heavily leveraged, does not refute that seven districts are competitive; it simply suggests that Republican candidates may win a number of these competitive districts. {¶ 194} Next, the majority states that the splits of Cuyahoga, Franklin, and Hamilton Counties unduly favor the Republican party. Dr. Imai reports that in Hamilton County, the Democratic vote share is cracked across three districts. Drs. Chen and Rodden explain that these splits are not necessary. The question, however, is whether they are permissible. The majority’s primary complaint is that 71 SUPREME COURT OF OHIO the strongly Democratic city of Cincinnati is in a district that contains the entirety of Warren County. But there is a perfectly valid justification for this: the Ohio Constitution requires an “attempt to include at least one whole county in each congressional district.” Article XIX, Section 2(B)(8). {¶ 195} Maybe the predictions made by petitioners’ experts will turn out to be correct and the incumbent Republican congressman will win reelection in District 1. The question, however, is whether the party is favored unduly. The answer is obviously no: District 1 is “hyper” competitive, with the FEDEA data showing a slight 51.5 to 48.5 percent Republican advantage. Indeed, President Biden won District 1 by 0.9 percent in 2020. District 1 is up for the taking. {¶ 196} Dr. Rodden also claims, as the majority puts it, that the plan “carves up the Black community in Cincinnati.” Majority opinion at ¶ 56. Petitioners have not, however, asserted a racial-gerrymandering claim under the framework required by Shaw v. Reno, 509 U.S. 630, 113 S.Ct. 2816, 125 L.Ed.2d 511 (1993). {¶ 197} As we consider in detail below, the majority makes similar arguments regarding the splits of Cuyahoga and Franklin Counties. In the end, the General Assembly explained why it split the counties the way it did: to make seven districts competitive. The majority seems to prefer proportional representation over competitive districts, but proportionality is not prescribed in Article XIX. {¶ 198} Finally, and as stated above, statistical measures like efficiency gap, mean-median gap, declination, partisan symmetry, and others are perfectly informative data measures. They tell a useful story about how closely an enacted plan achieves an ideal of proportional representation. But they are not in the Constitution. The General Assembly had no obligation, only the option, to use these fancy metrics. It chose, instead, to pursue competitive districts, which was its prerogative. {¶ 199} Summing all this up: competitive districts do not unduly favor or disfavor a political party. The General Assembly enacted a plan with what it 72 January Term, 2022 considers to be seven competitive districts. Its definition of competitive (plus or minus 4 percent) is not unreasonable. Neither is the data it used to calculate variance (FEDEA). We have no basis to pronounce that the enacted plan “transcends the limits of legislative power,” Bishop, 139 Ohio St. at 438, 40 N.E.2d 913. Despite everything the majority says today, petitioners have not established that the congressional-district plan unduly favors or disfavors a political party in contravention of Article XIX, Section 1(C)(3)(a).15 The General Assembly, therefore, is entitled to the last word on this quintessential policy matter. C. Undue division of governmental units {¶ 200} Article XIX, Section 1(C)(3)(b) prohibits the General Assembly from unduly splitting governmental units when it enacts a congressional-district plan by a simple majority vote. That provision states: If the general assembly passes a congressional district plan under division (C)(1) of this section by a simple majority of the members of each house of the general assembly, and not by the vote described in division (C)(2) of this section [i.e., three-fifths majority with at least one-third of the members of each of the two largest political parties in the house], all of the following apply: