Not long ago the Ohio legislature adopted a new Congressional district map for Ohio that has been widely condemned. In a roughly 50/50 state, their new map gives the GOP a clear 75/25 advantage (or 12-4) by putting Democrats on a few reservations, blatant gerrymandering.
But last night the 6-1 Republican Ohio Supreme Court unanimously threw a wrench in the works when they ruled that the new map is subject to referendum.
See here: Court ruling throws 2012 elections into chaos
and here: Voters can have a say on map, court rules
The Republicans had tried to shield the bill from referendum by adding an appropriation to the bill. Appropriation bills are exempt form referendum.
Ohio Democrats have shown twice in the last few months that they can raise the signatures to put legislation on the ballot through referendum once with Senate Bill 5 (union busting) and again with HB-194 (voter suppression).
So now Republicans face a stark choice:
they can gamble that the Democrats can't do it again. But the current filing deadline to run for Congress in Ohio is December 7 and referendum signature gathering period would extend nearly 3 weeks past that to December 24.
Candidates would have to file for office not knowing for sure what district they are running from. And if the referendum is successful (which may not be known until mid January) there would be no districts to run from in Ohio raising the possibility that all Congressional seats in Ohio would be elected in 16 statewide races.
Boehner v. Strickland in a statewide election anyone?
Or, the Republicans can go back to the drawing board and come up with districts that are more fair. But at this point that would probably require Democratic votes to approve given the timing.
Republicans wanted to move the primary back from March to May in Ohio and the democrats refused to cooperate after they adopted the gerrymandered map. So time has run out to do this as anything other than and emergency action which will require a super majority and thus at lest a few Democratic votes.
So Democrats suddenly hold the cards in Ohio due to the fact that Republicans have once again reached too far.
Stay tuned, this should be very interesting in Ohio in the next few weeks.