COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The Ohio Supreme Court has set the schedule to hear a lawsuit challenging a Republican redraw of state House and Senate districts, including setting a Dec. 8 date to hear oral arguments in the case.
The court announced the schedule on Wednesday for hearing the lawsuit, filed last week by the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio and two voting-rights groups, the League of Women Voters and the A. Philip Randolph Institute.
The scheduling order also lays out a firm timeline leading up to the December court date.
“No requests or stipulations for extension of time shall be filed, and the clerk of the court shall refuse to file any requests or stipulations for extension of time,” reads the unsigned order.
It sets an Oct. 22 deadline for the voting-rights groups and state officials to publicly file the evidence in the case they plan to use in their arguments. The voting-rights groups then will have until Oct. 29 to file a brief summarizing their case. The state officials will have until Nov. 5 to file their own brief. And then the voting-rights groups will have until Nov. 10 to file a reply brief.
The Supreme Court issued an identical briefing schedule for two other lawsuits, one filed Friday by redistricting groups with close ties to the Democratic Party, and another filed on Monday by the Ohio Environmental Council, the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Ohio - which represents the Ohio Muslim Community, and the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, a progressive group. The court did not specifically set an oral argument hearing date for those two cases, though.
The Ohio Redistricting Commission approved the maps along party lines earlier this month, with the commission’s five Republicans voting for them and two Democrats voting against. The maps likely would award at least 62 of 99 House seats and 23 of 33 Senate seats to Republicans, allowing the GOP to cement their veto-proof majority for another four years, when the maps will have to be redrawn.
The voting-rights groups have said the maps violate state constitutional language, approved by voters in 2015 as an anti-gerrymandering reform, that directs state map-makers to award districts in proportion to statewide voting preferences. Republicans have won 54% of the votes in statewide partisan elections over the past decade, compared to around 65% of the state legislative seats they would be expected to win in their maps.
Two Republican legislative leaders on the redistricting commission -- House Speaker Bob Cupp and Senate President Matt Huffman -- have argued the constitutional language describing the maps’ political requirements is not legally binding. They have said they plan to file a request with the court soon asking for the lawsuit to be dismissed.
For state legislative district maps passed without minority-party support, the state constitution requires the Ohio Supreme Court to review the maps for compliance with constitutional language describing the politically proportionate awarding of district seats. The court can either order changes to the maps or reject them entirely.
Republicans hold a 4-3 majority on the Ohio Supreme Court. But Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, a Republican, is considered a swing vote, having ruled against the current legislative lines in January 2011, dissenting with the court majority while ruling on a Democratic lawsuit.
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Ohio Supreme Court to hear oral arguments in December on redistricting lawsuit - cleveland.com
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