Ohio Supreme Court finds congressional district plan unconstitutional News
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Ohio Supreme Court finds congressional district plan unconstitutional

The Ohio Supreme Court Tuesday held that the state congressional district plan violates the Ohio Constitution.

The Ohio Redistricting Commission adopted the congressional district plan at issue in March. The Ohio legislature adopted a previous congressional district plan in November 2021, but the Ohio Supreme Court invalidated the legislature’s plan as unduly favoring the Republican Party over the Democrat Party. The court ordered the legislature to adopt a new plan within 30 days. After the legislature failed to adopt a new plan, the Redistricting Commission to redrew the maps as required by the Ohio Constitution.

The Ohio Constitution states that if the legislature passes a district plan, it cannot unduly favor a political party. The Ohio Senate President argued that this only applied to the legislature, and a commission could indeed adopt a plan that favored one party over the other. The court rejected this argument. The Commission’s duty was “to remedy any legal defects in the previous plan identified by the court.” The court reasoned that, if the Commission could unfairly redraw the boundaries to favor the Republican party once again, then it would not have remedied anything and would effectively skirt the constitutional requirement.