Ohio Supreme Court rejects GOP’s congressional map

The Ohio Supreme Court struck down a congressional map skewed to favor Republicans on Friday and sent it back to state lawmakers to try again.

The map would have given Republicans an advantage of 12 seats to three in elections for the House of Representatives, even though the GOP has lately won only about 55% of the statewide popular vote.

“This is not what Ohio voters wanted or expected,’’ the court said of the map. Under an amendment to the Ohio Constitution passed by voters in 2018, mapmakers are not allowed to redistrict the state to unduly favor one party. The proposed map was drawn by Republicans in the Legislature and passed without Democratic support, and the court rejected it in a 4-3 decision.

“When the dealer stacks the deck in advance, the house usually wins,” wrote

Justice Michael Donnelly for the majority, adding that the Republicans’ plan was “infused with undue partisan bias.”

The constitutional amendment was an effort to end partisan gerrymandering in the state, and the voting rights groups that brought the suit, including the League of Women Voters of Ohio, argued that Republican lawmakers had ignored the law.

The court agreed, holding that the evidence “makes clear beyond all doubt that the General Assembly did not heed the clarion call sent by Ohio voters to stop political gerrymandering.”

When the case was heard last month, Republicans argued that the districts were fair and that in fact Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat reelected in 2018, would have carried eight of the 15 new districts. Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, called the GOP plan “a fair, compact and competitive map” in November.