Ohio GOP misses disputed deadline for new U.S. House map

COLUMBUS (Ohio) — Thursday was the latest deadline set by a court for Ohio to redraw U.S. House District boundaries. There has not been a new congressional map.

Ohio House Speaker Bob Cupp is an influential Republican who was a former justice and rejected the need for legislators to follow a timetable set forth by the Supreme Court. This claim was based on “myth .”

“.

Cupp said people are overlooking alternative legal options when they simply count up the 30 days that justices gave the Republican-controlled Legislature when it rejected the latest U.S. House map on July 17.

“Outside-of-state activists propagandized the notion that there was a deadline this week for General Assembly members to approve a new map. Cupp stated in an open memo released Wednesday. It is false and has no basis in reality. Cupp wrote that it either shows an ignorance of the legal system or is an effort to create confusion about the .”

elections.

Democratic, voting-rights organizations won court cases against five Statehouse and two U.S. House map. These maps must be updated to reflect changes in population according to the 2020 census. Ohio’s Supreme Court said that the maps were not unduly gerrymandered in favor of the Republican Party.

Despite months of policy and legal wrangling, the 2022 congressional and legislative primaries were ultimately held using these same invalidated maps. The latest congressional map delivered two-thirds of Ohio’s 16 seats to Republicans, although the state’s party breakdown over the past 10 years was roughly 54% Republican, 46% Democrat.

Freda LEVINSON, the legal director of ACLU of Ohio was one of those who thought that lawmakers had missed their next deadline.

” This is in line with respondents’ long-standing pattern of tactical delays,” she stated via email.

This was the first attempt by the state to implement its new mapping systems. It is still unclear what will happen if mapmakers do not comply with court orders. Justices have not yet held them in contempt.

Cupp was a member of the court’s court, from 2007 through 2012,. He stated that legislators have the right to appeal from the Ohio Supreme Court decision in July to the U.S. Supreme Court because it is a matter federally important and they have 90 day to do so. That makes their next deadline Oct. 17, he wrote. If the federal court declines to take the appeal, that’s when the 30-day clock that Ohio voters have written into the state Constitution begins ticking, he said.

” This is the truth,” he stated.

Conveniently or not, Cupp’s timeline contains the 2022 congressional mapping process. This was to be completed in the Fall of 2021. It is very close to the end the year when Ohio Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor will have to retire because of age limitations.

O’Connor is a Republican who joined three Democrats to declare repeated Statehouse maps and congressional maps gerrymandered. GOP is hopeful that November’s elections will bring a more sympathetic judiciary.

Cupp did not mention whether he thought lawmakers could appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court back in January after the original congressional map was rejected.

Jen Miller is the executive director of League of Women Voters of Ohio. She disagreed with Cupp’s interpretation of an antigerrymandering amendment to the Ohio Constitution, which was approved in 2018. This she claimed gave the Ohio Supreme Court power to reject maps that were manipulated for political advantage.

” Instead of respecting the Ohio Constitution, Ohio Supreme Court Orders and creating new districts to reflect that Constitution, (Senate President Matt] Huffman and Cupp appear determined on serving their political interests. Then they justify their poor behavior with legal acrobatics,” said she in a text.