Politics

The Ohio Apportionment Board has approved maps for state house and senate districts for the next decade. The lone Democrat on the board, House Minority Leader Armond Budish, says the maps are skewed to greatly favor Republicans and he says Democrats and the public were left out of the process.

"As part of what seems to be the common thread all year, the majority map was crafted under a shroud of secrecy with no public input and no input from the minority party," says Budish.

The Quinnipiac University poll shows 53% of Ohioans disapprove of the way President Obama is doing his job.  And 51% say he doesn’t deserve to be re-elected.  But the poll also shows voters don’t like the Republicans who are in the field either. 

In a head to head matchup, the survey shows President Obama would beat Texas Governor Rick Perry by three points and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney by two points.  That’s so close that this pollster considers it too close to call. 

     TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) - A new poll suggests that about half of all Ohioans want the new collective bargaining law repealed while a little over a third want to keep it.

Ohio voters will decide in November whether to keep the law that bans public employees from striking and restricts collective bargaining abilities for public workers.

A Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday shows that 51 percent of Ohio voters say the law should be repealed while 38 percent favor keeping it in place. 

Voter advocacy groups, including the League of Women Voters, have told a state panel that Republican-drawn boundaries for state legislative districts would further solidify the party's grip on the Ohio Legislature for years to come.  

The groups testified Monday at a hearing of the Ohio Apportionment Board. The panel is charged with redrawing Ohio's legislative districts every 10 years to reflect changes in population after each census.