Gerrymandering Ruling Tees Up Another Challenge for GOP in Key Swing State

A special three-judge court struck down Ohio’s congressional district map Friday, finding it was unlawfully rigged to the benefit of Republicans.

The decision is the latest in a series of lower court rulings striking down district lines as unconstitutionally gerrymandered. The fate of those disputes will turn on a pair of gerrymandering cases from Maryland and North Carolina the Supreme Court is currently considering.

“The court issued a meticulously detailed opinion, concluding that Ohio’s map was an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander, and ordered the state to enact a new remedial plan by June 14,” said Freda Levenson of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Ohio. “This opinion, declaring Ohio an egregiously gerrymandered state, completely validates every one of our claims and theories in every respect.”

Republicans hold 12 of Ohio’s 16 congressional districts. The plaintiffs say GOP legislative aides drew the current map after the 2010 census with careful guidance from national Republicans and former House Speaker John Boehner, whose 8th district encompassed suburban Cincinnati and the state’s rural stretches on the Indiana border. Their goal, the plaintiffs charge, was to entrench a Republican majority in the state congressional delegation for a decade.