The Ohio Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down new legislative maps from the state’s Republican-dominated redistricting commission, saying that the maps for state House and Senate favored the GOP to such an extent that they violated the state’s constitution.
“What I am sure in my heart is that this committee could have come up with a bill that was much more clearly, clearly constitutional,” he said. “I’m sorry we did not do that.”
DeWine only wishes they did something a little less egregious so that O’Connor would let them keep the map.
The decision was also notable for some family ties: Justice Pat DeWine, who voted with the court’s conservatives in support of the gerrymandered maps, is Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s (R) son.
DeWine’s son “Justice” Pat is unremarkable except for his name and devotion to the GOP. MSM put heavy pressure on Pat to recuse.
Should be noted that this lawsuit was yet another big win for Marc Elias.
Congrats to the Ohio Supreme Court. Excellent opportunity to taut the redistricting changes the people have voted for and the GOP has refused to enact.
O’Connor is on the way out due to Ohio Supreme Court age limits:
She’s give a nice little parting gift to the Ohio GOP.
He has got to be twins - there is no way one man can do all he does.
He is not “unsung”, but he should be sung about a lot more. We need 100 of him hitting every state in the union.
And kudos to the Chief Justice for drawing some kind of a line.
Oh, why won’t he just take his half billion dollars and go home, sayeth Bannon. Though I suppose it is nice to know what the current price of democracy is to Republicans. I personally had it pegged at priceless.
“But perhaps just as noteworthy, the court’s Republican chief justice — who concurred with Democrats to make a majority — urged Ohio voters to consider a different redistricting model altogether, given that the redistricting commission was ‘seemingly unwilling to put aside partisan concerns’.”
For which, ironically, she will be swiftly and mercilessly attacked and vilified by partisan Republicans.
If this can happen in Ohio it can happen most anywhere.
I heard of many different types of lawyers, but how does one become an expert in election law? Not dissing Elias, but how do we get more eyes on the rigging?
Practice, practice, practice.
It’s not a common specialty, but Elias’s former BigLaw firm has an elections law practice. He got good and knowledgeable enough at it to be pretty much the go-to guy before finally forming his own firm.
I hope he’s training up some folks.
Jennifer Brunner - D - current Ohio SC justice, is running for O’Connor’s chief justice seat and the legislature just made a change to put party affiliation on the ballot so that she wouldn’t be elected.
They also wanted her to recuse because Eric Holder went to her fundraiser:
Madame Chief: “partisan districting” is a feature, not a bug of the GQP. you’re welcome.
Well, her forced retirement will save the Ohio GOP the expense of an impeachment proceeding.
With this OH Supreme Court decision, the Dems will be in a decent, if not very good, position to win the House. Certainly, any shot for the GOP to simply redistrict their way to the majority has been completely blown up.
This opinion, which is very clearly written and analytical, states that the districts need to be redrawn to meet the proportionality guideline. That is, the districts have to reflect how OH voters have voted in the past 10 years. Well, OH voters have been voting GOP at a 54-46 margin. That means Ds should get 46% of the congressional districts. That would mean an 8 GOP 7 Dem distribution of seats. The current OH congressional delegation is 12 GOP 4 DEM. This would effectively be, on paper, a net gain of +7 seats for the Dems in the GOP’s backyard. If Biden gets through the Omicron wave, I’d be tempted to say that’s the ballgame. The Dems will win the House.
In reading the opinion, I’m actually offended that this wasn’t a 7-0 decision in favor of the Dems (it was 4-3). The voters passed a referendum that was very clear and prescriptive about how districts should be drawn. The GOP gerrymander ignored and violated it. The majority simply analyzed the GOP map against the rules as laid out in the new law and found the GOP map didn’t meet that standard. There really wasn’t much room for interpretation here unless the idea was to challenge the legality of the ballot measure itself (which was not challenged). In other words, the law is the law and the GOP map didn’t comply with the law.
You will have to wait for that decision. This decision is related to the state legislative districts, not the Congressional districts.
No disagreement, but the legal criteria has been established. Of the 15 Congressional districts - 8 must be GOP leaning and 7 must be DEM leaning to get approval from the Ohio Supreme Court. Good News for The Buckeye State.
But it’s okay for the current governor’s son to sit in judgment of his dad’s administration?
