It was reported earlier this week that in 2018, 75% of Ohio voters approved a constitutional amendment to eliminate gerrymandering in congressional districts, but the map lawmakers approved in November favors Republicans even more than the current map, attorneys told the Ohio Supreme Court on Tuesday morning.
“This case is about how the General Assembly has thumbed its nose at these reforms and enacted a plan that palpably violates Article XIX’s new anti-gerrymandering protections,” said Ben Stafford, an attorney representing 12 Ohio voters and the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, run by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. Other plaintiffs include the ACLU of Ohio, League of Women Voters of Ohio and the A. Philip Randolph Institute, which advocates for Black voters.
Stafford said that in the current congressional map, adopted in 2011, Republicans won 75% of the districts. The November map favors Republicans in 80% of the seats.
Ohio’s high court held oral arguments Tuesday morning on the map, which will only last four years because Republicans in the Ohio General Assembly enacted the plan without the bipartisan support required to pass a 10-year map.
The map before the court creates 12 seats that will favor Republicans and three seats that will favor Democrats, although one is a tossup.
Attorneys representing the Republican defendants – Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman and Ohio House Speaker Bob Cupp – argued the maps create seven districts that are competitive, with margins they believe are close enough to flip parties, depending on the candidate and how national politics influence Ohio elections.
“These districts absolutely can flip back and forth in the coming decade. There are several Democratic-leaning districts,” said Phillip Strach, representing Huffman and Cupp. “If the Democrats recruit good candidates and run on the right issues, they can absolutely win those districts and they can absolutely win the districts and they can absolutely win the Republican-leaning districts.”
The map creates only U.S. House seats, since U.S. senators are elected at-large. But Strach said an expert who reviewed the map found U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Cleveland Democrat, has had enough votes across the state to win eight or nine of the districts against Republican challengers, even many districts map opponents believe were created to benefit Republicans.
Republicans in the Ohio General Assembly created the maps after the 2020 Census. As a result of the Census, Ohio will lose one U.S. House seat, a decrease from 16 to 15, because its population didn’t grow as briskly as other states’.
The Constitutional amendment states that with four-year maps, the legislature “shall not pass a plan that unduly favors or disfavors a political party or its incumbents.”
All eyes were on Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, a Republican who is considered a potential swing vote because she voted against the state legislative maps favoring the GOP in 2011.
Compared to other justices, O’Connor was relatively quiet during most of the oral arguments, except toward the end when she questioned Republican arguments that the seven competitive districts in the November map are better compared to two competitive districts in the 2011 map.
