COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio Redistricting Commission filed its response Friday to the Ohio Supreme Court regarding the objections filed earlier in the week to the newly adopted legislative maps.
The five Republicans on the commission said the new maps they approved are in line with what the court asked them to do for redrawing the maps.
They said their revised plan “closely corresponds” to the statewide preferences of Ohio voters.
“What the redistricting commission did is respond to what the court’s orders were in draft to a map that still followed all of the constitutional mandates,” Matt Huffman, R-Lima, said on Wednesday.
Neither Huffman nor House Speaker Robert Cupp, R-Lima, would talk Friday, however, in a text prior to the response being filed, an Ohio Senate Republican Caucus spokesperson said, “The response will speak for itself.”
Multiple voting rights groups filed legal objections with the Ohio Supreme Court because they said the most recent maps, just like the first ones, do not match voters’ preferences. The maps that were passed give Republicans the advantage in 58% of the House and Senate districts. However, Republicans have only received 54% of the vote in statewide races over the last 10 years.
“Ultimately, we won in Ohio Supreme Court. These maps were sent back to the Ohio Redistricting Commission, and they still conducted business as usual behind closed doors without a bipartisan process and ultimately created maps that are rigged for party outcome,” said Jen Miller, Director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio.
The commission’s response also says they approved the new maps “with unprecedented cooperation among the Commission members.” However, Ohio House Minority Leader Allison Russo, D-Upper Arlington, said she felt Republicans did not negotiate in good faith.
“Unfortunately, negotiations are usually only truly successful if they are bilateral and not unilateral. And I think as we continue to go on after the first couple of days, it turned into unilateral negotiations,” said Russo.
The Democrats on the commission said they offered maps that aligned with the 54-46 percentage breakdown but were not adopted. The commission’s response says “no plan was submitted to the Commission that achieved the strict proportionality ratio without significantly violating (the Ohio Constitution). As a result, the Commission adopted (the Republican maps).”
Spectrum News 1 Legal Analyst Rory Riley-Topping said the court is going to have to decide if Republicans doing the bare minimum is enough to satisfy its requirements.
“Based on what we’ve seen so far and the decision that they issued a couple of weeks to go, I am more inclined to say that the court is also very interested in the process because they don’t want to repeat this mess that we’ve had in the redrawing process every four years, every 10 years, depending on the maps that ultimately get passed,” said Riley-Topping.
A swift decision is necessary because the filing deadline for candidates is next Wednesday. The justices may also have to move back the deadline themselves if they shoot down the maps, because the legislature failed to do so last week and neither the Ohio House nor Senate is in session next week. Meanwhile, the commission is asking the court to make its mind up in the next two weeks or keep the revised plan in place through November’s general election and then revisit the issue afterwards.
“Well, I think there’s certainly a little bit of a touch of irony there because we’ve seen so many missed deadlines in this process so far. As we’ve talked about previously, the court is really taking this process seriously. They’ve been issuing decisions quickly, promptly and they want to get this done. So while certainly they’re able to ask for that, I don’t think it’s something that we’re going to see,” Riley-Topping said.
The last decision on the legislative maps was 4-3 with Republican Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor joining the three Democrats on the bench in the majority opinion.
