ICYMI: NRAF Opposes Ohio Republicans’ Attempt to Absolve Checks and Balances
For Immediate Release
December 20, 2022
Contact
Jena Doyle
doyle@redistrictingaction.org
ICYMI: NRAF Opposes Ohio Republicans’ Attempt to Absolve Checks and Balances
NRAF-Supported Voters File a Cert Opposition Brief to the Supreme Court of the United States in the Lawsuit Huffman v. Neiman
Washington, D.C. --Yesterday, Ohio voters supported by the National Redistricting Action Fund (NRAF) submitted a brief to the Supreme Court of the United States opposing certiorari in the case Huffman v. Neiman, a Republican appeal similar in nature to Moore v. Harper and asks the Court to consider whether to give state legislatures near-total control over federal elections, including congressional redistricting. The appeal argues that the very language the Republican Petitioners themselves referred to the ballot – now enshrined in the state’s constitution – is unenforceable. The appeal asks the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the Ohio State Supreme Court’s decision in Neiman v. LaRose, in which the state supreme court held that the state’s Republican-drawn congressional map is unconstitutional and a new congressional map that is compliant with the Ohio Constitution must be drawn. The underlying state lawsuit was initiated by the NRAF.
“At every step of Ohio’s redistricting process, the state’s Republican leaders did absolutely everything they could to skirt the rules that they themselves had helped put into place in previous years,” said Marina Jenkins, Director of Litigation and Policy for the NRAF. “Apparently surprised that they are being held accountable for gerrymandering, Ohio’s Republican leaders are now running to the Supreme Court of the United States with outlandish arguments that seek to undermine our federalist system and the fundamental democratic principle of checks and balances. Ohio’s Republican leadership has had every opportunity to draw a constitutionally compliant congressional map that would give voters truly equal representation, yet they simply refuse to do so. Instead, they have disregarded and disrespected the Ohio Supreme Court, the Ohio Constitution, and Ohio voters. This appeal is yet another attempt by Ohio’s Republican leaders to do whatever it takes to gerrymander – even if it means undermining the redistricting reform that they once helped put in place.”
The Ohio Supreme Court’s order requiring a new map was the result of a lawsuit filed in March 2022 by Ohio voters supported by the NRAF in their ongoing effort to secure a fair congressional map in Ohio. In July 2022, the Ohio Supreme Court struck down Ohio’s second congressional map as a partisan gerrymander. The second map, passed by the Republican-controlled Ohio Redistricting Commission in March, made incremental changes to the state’s original congressional map, which was passed by the Republicans in the state legislature in November 2021 and invalidated as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander by the Ohio Supreme Court, in an earlier NRAF lawsuit, on January 14, 2022.
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