COLUMBUS, Ohio (CN) — The Ohio Supreme Court on Friday declared the state's new congressional district map violates a constitutional amendment aimed at stopping political gerrymandering.
In a 4-3 decision, the court ruled that the Ohio General Assembly violated two provisions of Article XIX, a voter-approved redistricting amendment, by approving a plan to reapportion Ohio's 15 seats for the U.S. House of Representatives that favors the Republican Party.
On Wednesday, the state high court also struck down the legislative district maps for for the Ohio House of Representatives and the Ohio Senate, which are governed by a different section of the Ohio Constitution known as Article XI. The court found a GOP-controlled redistricting commission violated Section 6(A) of Artice XI, which states that "no General Assembly district plan shall be drawn primarily to favor or disfavor a political party."
In Friday's majority opinion on the congressional districts, Justice Michael P. Donnelly wrote that "the General Assembly did not heed the clarion call sent by Ohio voters to stop political gerrymandering."
Section 1(C)(3) of Article XIX states that lawmakers "shall not pass a plan that unduly favors or disfavors a political party," "shall not unduly split governmental units," and "shall attempt to draw districts that are compact."
Despite these constitutional directives, Donnelly said the new map "unduly favors the Republican Party and disfavors the Democratic Party." The majority also ruled that the map unreasonable splits three of Ohio's largest metropolitan areas in Hamilton, Cuyahoga and Summit counties, in order to give GOP candidates political leverage by combining urban and rural voters in 13 of the 15 congressional districts.
“The General Assembly produced a plan that is infused with undue partisan bias and that is incomprehensibly more extremely biased than the 2011 plan that it replaced,” the ruling states. “This is not what Ohio voters wanted or expected when they approved Article XIX as a means to end partisan gerrymandering in Ohio for good.”
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