KSU Political Science Professor Plays Central Role in Redistricting Bill

KSU Political Science Professor and Former Ohio State Representative Vernon Sykes and Former State Representative Matt Huffman join Secretary of State, Jon Husted as he signed Issue 1, the constitutional amendment that changes the way we draw legislative districts in Ohio.

Issue 1 will change Ohio's hyper-partisan process for drawing legislative districts, in which the majority party gerrymanders the lines for its own benefit. The current process produces district maps that maximize non-competitive and minimize competitive districts that result in a state legislature that does not reflect the political preferences of Ohio voters. With the passing of Issue 1, there will be a more by-partisan process to draw fairer districts that will be more aligned with the preferences of Ohio voters.

Former state Representatives Matt Huffman, a Republican from Lima, and Vernon Sykes also a Professor of Political Science at Kent State, served as co-chair of Issue 1’s successful campaign, winning the statewide election with 71% of the vote.

At the signing, Professor Sykes was also joined by his entire class.  Secretary Jon Husted made a presentation to the class, and the students had an opportunity to ask  him questions. 

POSTED: Friday, December 11, 2015 04:37 PM
UPDATED: Thursday, March 28, 2024 04:39 AM

Related Articles

Congratulations to faculty Daniel Hawes, PhD and Danny Chand, PhD on winning the Herbert Kaufman Award for best Public Administration Paper at the 2023 American Political Science Association Conference!

The U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) recently announced its 2023-24 cohort of Peace Scholar Fellows and a Kent State University graduate student is one of the 21 award recipients.

Congratulations to PhD candidate Laura Mendez, who has been awarded the United States Institute for Peace: Peace Scholar Fellowship!

Laura’s work uses critical discourse analysis to examine the “self-help” discourse deployed in foreign aid packages and interpretive phenomenological analysis of interviews collected in the field to examine how that discourse is then understood and used by aid recipients