Government

OH Supreme Court Tosses 'Non-Partisan' Maps That Ensured GOP Supermajority Forever

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vector map of Ohio congressional districts with nearest states and territoriesYesterday the Ohio Supreme Court tossed out a newly drawn state legislative map which would have given Republicans an enormous partisan advantage in this November’s election. In a 4-3 decision with one Republican appointee joining her three liberal colleagues, the court held that the redistricting process violated a 2015 amendment to the Ohio Constitution.

So much for the Republican drafters’ argument that the voters passed an “aspirational” constitutional amendment calling for proportional representation.

“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,” Justice Melody Stewart wrote for the majority.

Six years ago, Ohio voters passed Article XI, which mandated proportional, compact districts:

The Ohio redistricting commission shall attempt to draw a general assembly district plan that meets all of the following standards:

(A) No general assembly district plan shall be drawn primarily to favor or disfavor a political party.

(B) The statewide proportion of districts whose voters, based on statewide state and federal partisan general election results during the last ten years, favor each political party shall correspond closely to the statewide preferences of the voters of Ohio.

The Republicans who dominate the Ohio Redistricting Commission argue that the “shall attempt” language is merely “aspirational,” leaving them free to craft maps “drawn primarily” to benefit their own party. Which is exactly what Speaker of the House Robert Cupp and President of the Senate Matthew Huffman did, while more or less excluding Governor Mike DeWine and Secretary of State Frank LaRose, both Republicans, from the drafting process.

Needless to say they refused to interact at all with the Commission’s Democrats, House Minority Leader Emilia Sykes and Senator Vernon Sykes.

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Over the past decade, Republicans won 54 percent share of Ohio’s votes. Nevertheless, Huffman and Cupp argued that their map giving 67 percent of the seats in the legislature to Republicans was proportional — generous even! — because Republicans won 13 out of 16 statewide elections in the past ten years, so the GOP was actually entitled to 81 percent of the seats. Because the Supreme Court says politicians can choose their voters and their denominators.

DeWine professed himself “very, very sorry” about how the whole thing went down and said he was “sure in [his] heart is that this committee could have come up with a bill that was much more clearly, clearly constitutional.” And LaRose sighed heavily that “There are members of this committee who I do not believe worked in good faith to try to reach that compromise.”

Then they both voted for the gerrymandered maps that gave the GOP a supermajority stranglehold with just 54 percent of the vote.

But then the Supreme Court stepped in and said NFW. Not only did these legislative districts fly in the face of the law’s proportionality requirement, but they had clearly been drafted “primarily” for partisan advantage. Expert data scientists testify that you could not possibly have come up with these maps without explicitly trying to rig the election for Republicans, and the drafter himself testified that he did draw the lines with partisan intent after being instructed not to worry about the law’s proportionality requirement at all.

So much for “aspiration.”

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The court was similarly unimpressed with the argument that it was up to the voters, not the court, to address any violation of the law.

“The suggestion that the solution to unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering is simply to vote out its perpetrators is disingenuous,” the court wrote incredulously. “Partisan gerrymandering entrenches the party in power.”

The court ordered the Redistricting Commission to redraw new maps within ten days, as the February 2 filing deadline looms. It will retain jurisdiction to ensure that process proceeds fairly.

LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS OF OHIO ET AL. v. OHIO REDISTRICTING COMMISSION ET AL. [Order]

Redistricting: Ohio Supreme Court strikes down state House and Senate maps [Columbus Dispatch]

Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

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