Ohio Voters Challenge Unconstitutional Ohio Maps Before State Supreme Court with Support of National Redistricting Action Fund
For Immediate Release
September 24, 2021
Contact:
Harrell Kirstein
kirstein@redistrictingaction.org
Ohio Voters Challenge Unconstitutional Ohio Maps Before State Supreme Court with Support of National Redistricting Action Fund
Ohio Lawsuit Is NRAF’s First Legal Challenge To A 2021 Redistricting Map, Cites GOP Gov. DeWine’s Comments Doubting The Map’s Constitutionality
Washington, D.C. — The state legislative maps adopted by the Ohio Redistricting Commission are being challenged in a petition to the Ohio Supreme Court for violating both the letter and the spirit of Ohio’s 2015 constitutional amendment reforming the redistricting process by a group of individual voter-plaintiffs with the support of the National Redistricting Action Fund (NRAF). The lawsuit, captioned Bennett v. Ohio Redistricting Commission, is the NRAF’s first legal challenge to a map drawn as part of the 2021 redistricting process. It asks the court to invalidate the adopted Ohio maps and to direct the Commission to adopt a new, compliant state legislative redistricting plan.
“These Ohio maps are a failure in almost every way. They fail to reflect the will of Ohio voters and, ultimately, fail to meet the requirements of the state constitution,” said Eric H. Holder, Jr., the 82nd Attorney General of the United States. "The Ohio Supreme Court should throw them out and direct the commission to start again, this time adhering to the principles of fairness outlined in the reforms that were overwhelmingly supported by the people of Ohio in 2015.”
The petition outlines how the Ohio Redistricting Commission’s state legislative plan violates Article XI of the Ohio Constitution. Specifically, the petition details ways the Ohio Redistricting Commission drew the state’s legislative maps primarily to favor the Republican Party, a violation of Article XI, section 6(a).
The petition also explains how the maps fail to meet the representational fairness standard set forth in Article XI, section 6(b). The Constitution requires the Commission to draw a map that reflects the state’s partisan breakdown -- in the closely contested state of Ohio, that means about 54% of seats should go to Republicans and 46% to Democrats. But instead of following the law, these maps would likely entrench Republican supermajorities in both houses of the Ohio legislature.
As the petition points out, potential constitutional issues with the redistricting plan have already been raised by Republicans on the commission, including Governor Mike DeWine. DeWine expressed his view that the Commission “could have produced a more clearly constitutional bill. That’s not the bill we have in front of us.”
The voter-plaintiffs also point out that the Ohio Redistricting Commission deliberately ignored requirements of the 2015 redistricting reforms by both failing to respond to the public’s substantive comments and by failing to meet the September 1 deadline to adopt or even simply propose state legislative maps to the public. The reforms were added to the state constitution after receiving support from 71 percent of Ohio voters.
Copies of the Bennett filings can be downloaded at https://redistrictingaction.org/litigation. Plaintiffs are being represented in these lawsuits by NRAF’s counsel at Elias Law Group and McTigue & Colombo LLC.
###
About NRAF
The National Redistricting Action Fund (NRAF) is the 501(c)(4) affiliate of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. The mission of the NRAF is to harness the power of people and the courts to dismantle unfair electoral maps and create a redistricting system based on democratic values. By helping to create more just and representative electoral districts across the country, we also hope to restore the public’s faith in a true representative democracy.