Late this afternoon, the Ohio Supreme Court, which was charged by ballot amendment passed by more than 70% of state voters with being the ultimate arbiter on legislative and congressional maps, overturned the legislative maps by a vote of 4-3 and told the redistricting committee to come up with new maps that better represented the 54-46 partisan split of the voters in 10 days. Hey — stop whining, Matt Huffman (Senate majority leader) and Bob Cupp (speaker) — you managed to come up with illegal maps in no time at all!
www.courtnewsohio.gov/…
With the court split 4-3 in favor of Republicans, it was believed that Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, who in the past has taken a dim view of election chicanery, would be the swing vote, and she was. Incredibly, justice Pat DeWine, son of the sitting governor and member of the redistricting commission, didn’t recuse himself, although he has in the past on issues his father was party to. That shows you how desperate Republicans are to keep power at all costs, even if it means giving the middle finger to the clear intention of 70% of the voters. The Republican justices, of course, found nits to pick it and tiny loopholes they claimed negated the vast major of the new redistricting procedures written into the state constitution. Melody Stewart, the first black woman elected to the Ohio Supreme Court (there was one previously appointed who didn’t win reelection), wrote the majority opinion. I just saw her last night swearing in a local mayor whose ceremony I was hired to shoot, and it was good to see her, but we didn’t know last night this was coming!
The Supreme Court still has to weigh in on the congressional maps which are also being challenged, but this is a good sign. The current maps would give Democrats 2-3 districts and Republicans 12-13. (Expect the worse outcome in an off year). If they are overturned the worst they could draw to still be remotely in the ballpark would be 9-6 favoring the GOP (8-7 would be fairer, but that’s probably too much to hope for). If they do create such maps (and remember this is still “if”), Democrats would pick up two seats from their current four while the GOP would lose three seats from their current six. (Maybe they’ll even target Gymmie Jordan’s district!) That’s five seats in Ohio. That could easily be the winning/losing margin for control of the House —the difference between Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar chairing key committees and sane people leading them, the difference between a House obsessed with avenging investigation into the corruption of the god they worship (TFG) and a House that works bills benefiting ordinary American people.
Stay tuned.
