The Ohio Supreme Court struck down the state’s gerrymandered legislative maps on Wednesday in a victory for advocates of fair elections.
The gerrymandered maps are the product of the seven-member Ohio Redistricting Commission, which includes five Republicans and two Democrats. The commission produced a map – over the objections of the two Democratic members – that was expected to give Republicans a 62-37 advantage in the state House and a 23-10 advantage in the state Senate.
That’s despite former president Trump only winning Ohio 53-45% during the 2020 presidential election. Such skewed maps were likely to result in a Republican majority in both chambers regardless of the will of voters – even during campaign cycles that strongly favored Democrats.
However, voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment in 2015 that curtailed gerrymandering within the state. The amendment requires the commission to create boundaries that result in politically competitive districts.
“The commission is required to attempt to draw a plan in which the statewide proportion of Republican-leaning districts to Democratic-leaning districts closely corresponds to those percentages,” the Ohio Supreme Court majority wrote, rebutting Republican commissioners who contended that the constitutional amendment was merely “aspirational” in nature. “Section 6 speaks not of desire but of direction: the commission shall attempt to achieve the standards of that section.”
“We reject the notion that Ohio voters rallied so strongly behind an anti-gerrymandering amendment to the Ohio Constitution yet believed at the time that the amendment was toothless,” the majority added.
The Ohio Supreme Court has a 4-3 Republican majority. Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, a Republican, cast the deciding vote.
In addition to the state legislative maps, the Ohio Supreme Court is also considering a challenge to Ohio’s Congressional map, which is even more skewed in favor of Republicans. According to an analysis of the approved Congressional map, Republicans are favored in 12 of 15 districts – 80 percent of districts versus the 53 percent that the party received at the top of the ballot.
“This case is about how the General Assembly has thumbed its nose at these reforms and enacted a plan that palpably violates Article 19’s new anti-gerrymandering protections,” attorney Ben Stafford told the Ohio Supreme Court, which is expected to decide on whether to throw out the Congressional map in the coming weeks.
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