By now, you may know the story: The Ohio Supreme Court, with three Democrats and its Republican chief justice making up a majority, has rejected a proposed state legislative map drawn by the GOP-dominated redistricting commission.
That’s what happened Thursday — for the fourth time. The maps, the court’s unamused majority said, were unconstitutionally slanted in Republicans’ favor, violating amendments supported by the vast majority of Ohioans against partisan gerrymandering. What’s more, the court’s majority said, the latest map was “materially identical” to the previous rejected one, and fell short on the same measures.
“As before, the commission did not adopt a plan using a process that Article XI [of the Ohio Constitution] and this court’s prior decisions require,” the court’s majority opinion read, referring to the Ohio Redistricting Commission, which includes high-profile pols like Gov. Mike DeWine (R) and Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R), pictured above.
The fourth attempt at drawing state legislative maps was supposed to be different: Prompted by a suggestion from the court, the commission hired two independent mapmakers and let them draft a proposal on a live-streamed webcast.
But then, on the last day before the Supreme Court’s deadline, Republicans voted to support a “parachute” plan, rather than the bipartisan mapmakers’ proposal, purportedly because of deadline pressure.
Republican staffers drew up the proposal that was finally submitted — which, in actuality, was just a slightly modified version of the previously-rejected third proposal.
“These facts indicate beyond a reasonable doubt an intent to favor the Republican Party at the expense of the Democratic Party in the commission’s fourth try at drafting the General Assembly–district plan,” the court’s majority said.
Importantly, the court rejected challengers’ request that members of the commission be held in contempt for failing to draw a constitutional map.
But What Can The Ohio Supreme Court Do About It?
As before, the court ordered the redistricting commission to try again. They even went so far as to suggest that the independent mapmakers’ proposal be the “starting point for the next plan,” given that it was superior to the Republican submission on several measures.
The court gave the commission until the morning of May 6 to file their next proposal.
But… what if the same thing happens? Ohio Republicans, after all, are playing a delay game: Their gerrymandered congressional maps, though still under a legal challenge, are nonetheless being used for the upcoming congressional primaries because the state Supreme Court set the schedule for that challenge after those primaries take place.
Unlike the congressional race, Secretary of State LaRose has already instructed county clerks to remove the state legislative races from the upcoming primary ballots. The races will be voted on at a later date — and that date has become a key open question in the redistricting fight.
Republican activists have asked a federal court to take over the state redistricting process, in an attempt to use one of the GOP-friendly maps already rejected by the state Supreme Court. That federal court has punted a decision on getting involved until April 20, based on claims from LaRose’s office that this is the deadline to decide on maps in order to hold a primary election by August 2.
But on Thursday, the state Supreme Court noted that other states have primaries after August 2, and called the April 20 date an apparently “artificial deadline.”
“Any suggestion that the federal court could – much less that it should – set an August 2 primary election date as a remedy in the federal-court litigation strikes us as a dubious proposition at best,” the majority wrote.
“Principles of federalism and comity cut against a federal court ordering the date of a primary election for purely state offices due to a dispute over the validity of state legislative maps under the state constitution,” the opinion added.
For now, at least, the ball is in the redistricting commission’s court. If they come up with a constitutional map in time, Ohioans may not have to deal with the prospect of a federal court swooping in and taking over the redistricting process, potentially resulting in a map slanted in Republicans’ favor.
But given the redistricting commission’s behavior so far, that’s no safe bet.
All designed to get the decision that Alito and others have been begging for the opportunity to make, i.e., that state legislatures make the rules per the Federal Constitution and therefore not even the state Constitutions and state courts can say anything about it. It is, of course, a complete batshit end-run around actual federalism but they’re desperate and democracy is an existential threat to them so…
We live in a fascist non-democracy ALREADY, and it will only be getting WORSE from here on out.
I see no quit in the Ohio GQP. They will keep on sabotaging the process. They expect the Dems, the ACLU, the NRDC, etc. to give up like they did on the Congressional maps and let the GOP have their maps for 2022.
They are pinning their hopes on the retiring GOP chief justice being replaced by someone the GOP controls better. It’s a good bet.
Your one word answer:
No.
I guess there is the way I think and wish the law would operate when obvious mal-intent is present (such as in this case) and the only reason they will succeed is because the greasy hacks delayed enough to pass by some utter fucking horseshit deadline by a fucking bunch of horseshit partisan supreme court hacks to prevent a reasonable map being put in place.
And there is the way the law is expected and projected to ‘function’, regardless of my emotion. Alas.
I a SO SICK AND TIRED of the continual gaming of the system by Republicans. They don’t care about what’s right or fair or legal – they only care about WINNING. No matter how they have to do it.