By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor-in-chief. Coleman is a former public school biology teacher and a seasoned Black political. legal and investigative reporter who trained as a reporter at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio for 17 years,
COLUMBUS, Ohio-Once again, the seven-member Republican-dominated Ohio Redistricting Commission, which includes Gov. Mike DeWine and Secretary of State Frank LaRose, has been accused of approving racist and unconstitutional four-year state legislative district maps, plaintiffs in lawsuits pending with the Ohio Supreme Court raising such concerns on Monday in filings that ask the court to reject the maps for a second time in under two weeks.
Representatives for the redistricting commission (ORC), which voted 5-2 on Saturday to approve the new maps, and along party lines, have until noon on Friday to respond. The newly-passed maps give Republicans who seek office or reelection to the Ohio state legislature advantage in 57 of 99 districts in the Ohio House and 20 of 33 districts in the Ohio Senate, the plaintiffs say.
The court, on Jan 12., struck down the first set of GOP drawn state House and Senate district maps, ruling 4-3 that the maps were unconstitutional and did not meet the mandates of the anti-gerrymandering rules established by voters in 2015. The court ruling sent the maps back to the ORC for a new plan that was required to be adopted within 10 days, and after meeting at length this past weekend, the commission submitted newly-approved maps to the court as ordered.
The plaintiffs in the three lawsuits who convinced the court to reject the maps the first time around, including the League of Women Voters of Ohio and the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, say basically the same thing. They argue that the maps are unconstitutional because they are drawn to carve state legislative districts where voters collectively favor Republicans over Democratic candidates for elections to the Ohio House and Senate. This, says the plaintiffs, is blatantly racist and against the 2015 voter approved referendum that changed redistricting rules.
A Republican and former lieutenant governor, Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor broke with her party and joined the three Democrats on the seven member largely female and majority Republican court to bring Democrats and voting advocates a win regarding the court decision that struck down the maps initially and sent the ORC back to the drawing board.
The court's majority opinion was written by Justice Melody Stewart, a Democrat and the first Black elected to the court. A former 8th District Court of Appeals judge out of Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland, Stewart's opinion on behalf of the majority says the maps the first time around disproportionately favor Republicans.
Those preferences, she wrote, were 54% for Republican candidates and 46% for Democratic candidates over the past 10 years and since the last census report.
“The commission is required to attempt to draw a plan in which the statewide proportion of Republican-leaning districts to Democratic-leaning districts closely corresponds to those percentages,” wrote Stewart. “Section 6 speaks not of desire but of direction: the commission shall attempt to achieve the standards of that section."
The court heard oral arguments last month relative to three lawsuits that challenge the Republican-approved state legislative district maps, controversial maps approved in September by the Ohio Redistricting Commission (ORC), which is accused of approving illegally drawn maps that are racist and that favor Republican candidates for office. (Editor's note: The ORC also has jurisdiction under state law to approve congressional district maps when the state legislature reaches an impasse on the issue but this article pertains to the controversy around the ORC's drawing of maps for state legislative districts, and three pending lawsuits that say the new maps are unconstitutional).
Set to take effect for the 2022 elections for open seats on the Ohio state legislature, such maps determine state district boundaries for elections of state representatives and state senators in Ohio, and in a discriminatory fashion, the lawsuits say. Currently, Republicans control the Ohio House of Representatives and the Ohio Senate, which is partly why the ORC is largely Republican.
An amendment to the state constitution approved by voters in 2015 changed the way the process for drawing congressional and state legislative maps occurs and created the ORC, though districts are still drawn initially in conjunction with population dynamics in response to the U.S. Census every 10 years. The year 2020 marked 10-years since the last applicable census and, accordingly, this year is the first time that the new process that employs authority to the ORC to step in for the state legislature when a partisan conflict ensues over the maps has been put to a test.
The first lawsuit for which the state Supreme Court heard oral arguments in December was filed by the ACLU primarily on behalf of the League of Women Voters of Ohio and the A. Philip Randolph Institute and the second by the National Democratic Redistricting Committee on behalf of a group of Ohio voters. A third suit was brought by plaintiffs who say the maps dilute Black Muslim votes. It was filed by the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, the Ohio Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and the Ohio Environmental Council.
All three of the lawsuits were filed in the Ohio Supreme Court and allege in large part that the ORC purposely gerrymandered the maps to help Republicans win elections over Democrats for state House and Senate races with the plaintiffs in the third lawsuit claiming also that the maps have racial implications that raise constitutional questions since a majority of Black and Muslim voters and voters of color in general are Democrats.
"OOC believes that the maps currently under scrutiny by the state's highest court are unconstitutional because of the ways they dilute the power of voters in Black, brown, immigrant, and Muslim communities through "cracking and packing," a spokesperson for the Ohio Organizing Collaborative said in a statement to clevelandurbannews.com and www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's Black digital news leader.
The maps that Ohio's highest court struck down for the first time on Jan 12 and sent back for revision, were approved by the commission (ORC) 5-2 on Sept. 16 with Democrats Emilia Sykes of Akron, then the minority leader of the House, and her father, state Sen Vernon Sykes, also of Akron, refusing to support the measure. Both of them are Black. The younger Sykes' successor as House minority leader, state Rep Allison Russo, an Upper-Arlington Democrat, now serves on the ORC in her place as the commission.
The five Republican members of the ORC, including Gov DeWine and Secretary of State Frank LaRose, eagerly voted for the maps when they were rejected by the court and again this past weekend, and the commission has issued press releases praising the process in the past. The issue moved to the seven member commission (ORC) after state lawmakers as a whole and along party lines could not agree to the redistricting maps. Under the new redistricting rules that Ohio voters approved at the ballot box in 2015 the maps are for four years because Democrats and Republicans in the state legislature could not agree on 10-year maps.
Ohio lawmakers are term-limited. State law restricts state legislators in Ohio from holding office for more than eight years, and only after a four year period out of office. In conjunction with the redistricting controversy. bill is pending in the state legislature that seeks to extend this year's primary election by a month, from May 3 to June 7.
clevelandurbannews.com and www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
