Ohio Supreme Court dismisses legal challenges to new legislative maps
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – New state legislative maps heavily criticized by redistricting advocates as unduly favoring Republican legislators will remain in place until 2030, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled Monday evening.
In a dismissal of legal challenges to the redistricting plans, the court pointed to the commission’s bipartisan approval of the maps as evidence that conditions have changed from when complaints were first filed in 2021. The Ohio Redistricting Commission, a seven-member body currently controlled by Republicans, unanimously adopted new maps in September that voting rights advocates and Democrats have argued favor Republicans more than maps the court previously ruled unconstitutional.
The commission’s new plan gives Republicans 23 likely Senate seats, out of 33, and 61 likely House seats, out of 99. The two Democrat members of the commission voting to adopt the plans in late September, under looming election deadlines, differs from the five previous plans adopted along party lines that the court ruled unduly favored Republicans. The partisan makeup of the state is about 54% Republican and 46% Democrat, far more evenly split than the new maps that give Republicans 70% control in the Senate and 62% control in the House.
In its unauthored opinion, joined by all four Republican justices, the court said the new plan stands on “entirely different footing.”
“The bipartisan adoption of the September 2023 plan is a changed circumstance that makes it appropriate to relinquish our continuing jurisdiction over these cases,” the decision reads.
The League of Women Voters of Ohio challenged legislative maps drafted in 2021 under a state constitutional provision requiring the commission to draw maps representing the partisan preferences of the state. After several rejected maps and missed deadlines, a federal court ordered the use of maps rendered unconstitutional in the 2022 election with the mandate that the redistricting commission draw new maps for 2024.
Despite the commission’s unanimous vote to adopt the new maps, the mapmaking process was hardly smooth; procedural delays, Republican infighting about who would co-chair the commission and a hasty timeline offered by commission member and Secretary of State Frank LaRose led to the quick adoption of Republican-introduced working maps and back-to-back public meetings across the state.
In the end, Republican commission members applauded the commission’s bipartisan approval of new maps while redistricting reformists said it was further evidence of the need for a new process altogether, one that takes redistricting out of the hands of elected officials.
Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio, said that the court’s ruling, and the most recent mapmaking process, drives home the necessity of a proposed constitutional amendment to establish a new Independent Redistricting Commission. The proposed amendment, which is currently gathering signatures to be placed on November 2024 ballots, would replace the current commission with a 15-member body made of Democrats, Republicans and independent voters. Elected officials, recent political officeholders and lobbyists would be expressly barred from serving on the commission.
“Politicians want to guarantee their own reelection,” Miller said. “Bottom line, it is too tempting when they are drawing maps — they want to make sure that they get reelected, and so do their friends.”
In early October, the League of Women Voters of Ohio filed a request to object to the newly adopted plan, alleging the commission did not in good faith attempt to draw maps proportionally representative of the state’s partisan makeup.
In her dissent, Justice Jennifer Brunner, joined by the court’s two other Democrats, argued the process by which the maps were adopted is irrelevant to the court’s duty to review their constitutionality. Siding with Republican commission members’ requests to dismiss the case empowers politicians to draw maps that forward partisan goals, she said.
“When the fairness of legislative-district maps is in contention, the last thing we should do is to essentially bless a unanimous deal between the state’s major political parties and permit it to go constitutionally unchecked,” Brunner wrote.
With candidate filing deadlines fast approaching, Brunner argued the court has paved the way for the maps to move forward without proper review. It also will decrease public trust in the judiciary’s ability to be independent from outside political forces, she said.
The League of Women Voters of Ohio has long considered it a priority to address gerrymandering, Miller said, dating back 80 years. It does not matter who is in charge, she said; Democrats and Republicans alike have abused their discretion to enact maps that serve political ends.
Miller said removing partisan actors from the redistricting process is essential to upholding the will of Ohioans — which previously voted twice to reform the legislative mapmaking process to make it less ripe for manipulation.
“When the Ohio statehouse and our congressional delegation are gerrymandered, those lawmakers don’t listen to the everyday people of Ohio,” she said. “They play to party extremes, and they play to their major donors. They don’t listen to all of us and our needs.”
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