Ohio’s Supreme Court rejected a GOP-backed redistricting plan for state Legislature districts Wednesday because they too strongly favored Republicans.
The high court ruled in a 4-3 decision that the Ohio Redistricting Commission did not sufficiently attempt to meet proportionality standards required in the Ohio Constitution. As a result, the commission will have to draft new maps.
COURT RULES NORTH CAROLINA’S NEW REDISTRICTING MAPS ARE CONSTITUTIONAL
“The Ohio Supreme Court’s decision is huge. It not only orders the immediate drawing of a new constitutional map, but it also validates that Ohio’s voter-enacted constitutional prohibition that partisan gerrymandering is not merely ‘aspirational’ — it has real teeth. This bodes well for the 2022 election cycle — and beyond,” Freda Levenson, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, said in a statement.
“Throughout this process, I expected that Ohio’s legislative maps would be litigated and that the Ohio Supreme Court would make a decision on their constitutionality. I will work with my fellow redistricting commission members on revised maps that are consistent with the court’s order,” Gov. Mike DeWine said in a statement.
Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, a Republican, joined her three Democrat colleagues in the decision. Her three Republican colleagues dissented. The ruling was based largely on a provision in the state constitution that required the drawing of districts to correspond closely to the “statewide preferences of the voters of Ohio.” The court determined that the maps gave state Republicans too much of an advantage.
The court ordered the commission to produce new maps within 10 days of its judgment and said that it “retains jurisdiction” to review the new maps. Ohio currently has a filing deadline of Feb. 2 for partisan candidates, and primaries are set to take place in May.
The justices cited a negotiation between members of the commission in which “all parties agreed” that Republicans won about 54% of the state vote share and Democrats won about 46% during the past decade. The court said the map it rejected favored state House Republicans 67-32 and state Senate Republicans 23-10.
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In 2015, voters in the state approved a constitutional amendment in an attempt to make the redistricting process for state Legislature races more bipartisan. It established the seven-member bipartisan redistricting commission with two Democrats and five Republicans. The two Democrats on the commission objected to the map the court rejected, while the five Republicans backed it, the Columbus Dispatch reported.
In December, the Ohio Supreme Court heard arguments for a legal dispute over maps for the state’s congressional races. The state’s congressional district maps are different from that state’s Legislature district maps. The state will have 15 congressional seats in the 2022 midterm elections.
