Maureen O’Connor, Former Ohio Supreme Court Chief, Slams GOP Gerrymandering

Maureen O’Connor was probably the most highly effective lady in Ohio politics for the higher a part of 24 years, first as lieutenant governor and later because the chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court. But once I requested if her state at the moment has a legitimately consultant authorities, she didn’t reply instantly.

That’s as a result of it’s an open query.

For one factor, the Ohio state House and Senate and the state’s congressional delegation had been elected in 2022 utilizing maps {that a} majority of the Ohio Supreme Court, together with O’Connor, dominated had been unconstitutionally unfair to Democrats. The maps, drafted by the Ohio Redistricting Commission — composed of Gov. Mike DeWine (R), Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R), Auditor Keith Faber (R), and two members of every social gathering from the state legislature — disproportionately favored Republican candidates, in violation of constitutional amendments that had been permitted by a large margin of voters just some years earlier, the courtroom discovered.

Unlike different states comparable to New York, Ohio’s anti-gerrymandering language, written by the legislature, does not give the state Supreme Court authority to rent unbiased mapmakers by itself. The courtroom might solely reject maps it deems unconstitutional. With no authorized backstop, the Republican-dominated redistricting fee had no incentive to give you maps the courtroom would approve, and it didn’t.

The state maps had been discovered to be unconstitutional a complete of five times between January and May final yr. In response to every of the courtroom’s rulings, Republicans on the redistricting fee repeatedly doubled down. Defying the courtroom, they created a constitutional disaster and delayed the redistricting course of so badly {that a} federal panel stepped in on the request of native anti-abortion activists and allowed the unconstitutional maps for use.

Amid the monthslong battle, some Republicans indicated they could help impeaching O’Connor, who as a Republican was vilified for breaking ranks along with her social gathering. A state age restrict has since compelled O’Connor to retire, and the Ohio Supreme Court now has a stable Republican majority — which means the gerrymandered maps are probably right here to remain.

Out of workplace, O’Connor hasn’t overpassed the struggle for honest districts. She says she’ll work to construct help for a constitutional modification within the state to create an unbiased redistricting course of and “get the politicians, the elected officials, off the redistricting commission.”

But for now, the product of the GOP-drawn maps is evident: It’s a stacked deck.

Republican candidates collectively gained 57% of the state Senate votes total in 2022 and but management 79% of the state Senate seats, in response to a HuffPost evaluation of election outcomes. Republican candidates gained 59% of the state House votes and management 68% of the state House seats. GOP congressional candidates collectively gained 57% of the vote towards Democrats, and but management 67% of the state’s congressional seats.

So is Ohio a consultant democracy in any actual sense? O’Connor sighed when requested that actual query.

“That’s the whole problem with gerrymandering … Who’s being represented? And how did they secure that representation?” she stated. The actual query, O’Connor added, “is not how the voters secure that representation, but how the politicians secure the voters.”

From the beginning, O’Connor knew the Republicans tasked with drawing districts could be hassle.

When the redistricting fee submitted its first set of legislative maps in September 2021, it justified a laughably lopsided Republican benefit by explaining that GOP candidates had gained 13 instances within the final 16 statewide elections — which means, in response to the GOP logic, that the “statewide proportion of voters favoring statewide Republican candidates” was 81%.

The New York Times called the argument “statistical sleight of hand,” and critics famous that underneath that reasoning, extraordinarily liberal states could be justified in making all of their districts Democrat-leaning, even when regional political preferences broke from statewide traits.

The Ohio Supreme Court discovered that the maps plainly violated constitutional language forbidding districts that unduly favored one social gathering — language that voters had overwhelmingly supported just some years prior.

“There was no apology for that by the map-drawers for the party that’s in power … It’s almost [a] to-the-victor-go-the-spoils type of mentality. That’s not representative government,” she advised HuffPost. “That’s a dictatorship, that’s not a constitution.”

O’Connor and three Democratic justices dominated towards the fee, voiding the proposed maps and sending the fee again to the drafting board.

In a concurrence, O’Connor stated the fee was “seemingly unwilling to put aside partisan concerns as directed by the people’s vote.” She spent a number of pages discussing different states that had created unbiased redistricting commissions, noting that they had been potential fashions for Ohioans.

Voters, she wrote, ought to perceive “they have the power to again amend the Ohio Constitution to ensure that partisan politics is removed from the drawing of Ohio Senate and House districts that takes place every ten years.”

Even the redistricting fee’s Republicans appeared to know they’d gone too far. In a private message to his chief of employees that was later revealed as a part of litigation, LaRose, the secretary of state, known as the 81% rationale “asinine.” (“One of the only genuine utterances to come from him,” O’Connor noticed.) “I should vote no,” LaRose wrote privately, simply earlier than voting “yes” on the maps.

Upon the fee’s vote, DeWine, who additionally voted in help of the lopsided Republican benefit, acknowledged that the fee “could have produced a more clearly constitutional bill.”

“More constitutional,” O’Connor scoffed 16 months later. “Either it’s constitutional or it’s not. It’s like ‘a little bit pregnant.’”

Things didn’t get higher from there. The redistricting fee Republicans’ subsequent maps nominally included extra Democratic-leaning districts — however upon nearer inspection, they had been primarily even toss-ups, particularly in comparison with the solidly purple GOP districts.

“That just masquerades as compliance with the constitution,” O’Connor stated of the toss-up districts that had been labeled Democratic-leaning. Ultimately, Republicans dominated these districts in November, as anticipated, contributing to the expansion of their supermajorities within the state legislature.

Eventually, after yet one more set of maps that the state Supreme Court majority dominated had been clearly drawn to “favor the Republican Party & disfavor the Democratic Party,” the bulk urged the redistricting fee to rent unbiased mapmakers to attract the subsequent maps. And the fee complied, streaming the method on-line, till the final minute.

With hours to go earlier than the deadline to submit new maps, and with two unbiased mapmakers almost completed with their task, the Republican commissioners stepped in, opting as an alternative for a pre-drawn draft from Republican staffers — what was actually solely a slight alteration of beforehand rejected maps.

Dan Tierney, DeWine’s press secretary, recounted what occurred from the governor’s perspective to HuffPost: One of the 2 unbiased mapmakers had indicated that with the intention to meet the Ohio Constitution’s language about proportionality, “every time we have to make a decision, we have to benefit the Democratic Party.” Republicans on the fee, Tierney stated, wouldn’t help such a proposal — what he known as “likely a Democratic gerrymander.” So it was a matter of both asking the courtroom for a bit extra time to complete the unbiased maps, or simply submitting a barely tweaked model of districts the courtroom had already discovered unconstitutional. Republicans selected the latter possibility. What had been a glimmer of hope for skilled, honest maps was gone.

“It wasn’t even sleight of hand,” O’Connor stated. “With sleight of hand, you’re left scratching your head about what happened there. That wasn’t even it. It was blatant. It was brazen. It was just the president of the Senate pulling out a map and saying, ‘Gee, we’re out of time. We’ve got this map. It’s been drawn, we had it in our back pocket. This is what we’re going to do.’”

Eventually, Republican politicians within the state grew pissed off with their chief justice’s intransigence. In a caucus telephone name reported by the Ohio Capital Journal, a number of legislators voiced help for impeaching O’Connor. LaRose said he could be “fine” with O’Connor being booted from the courtroom.

O’Connor advised HuffPost the impeachment chatter was “of course a threat.” In one interview with The Associated Press, she even invoked Germany underneath Adolf Hitler, telling Republicans to evaluate their historical past. She advised HuffPost, “I was talking about the legal maneuvering that Hitler used in order to get a toehold in the very beginning of his ascent to power in Germany.”

Litigants within the redistricting struggle and common Ohioans have known as for penalties for the Republicans repeatedly drawing unconstitutional maps and ignoring the courtroom. And although the courtroom considered contempt hearings for the commissioners, it by no means adopted by means of. Commissioners argued they had been merely appearing as pseudo-legislators tasked with drafting a invoice, and O’Connor shared separation of powers considerations: “It would have really ignited a constitutional crisis, and I don’t use that word lightly.”

Republicans on the fee have tried to defend their maps. Rob Nichols, a spokesperson for LaRose, advised HuffPost that O’Connor had gone outdoors the framework of the Ohio Constitution in her rulings — “less ‘what works under the requirements under the constitution’ and more ‘guess what new constitutional requirement Maureen O’Connor will make up next,’” he stated in an e-mail.

Redistricting Commission Co-Chair Vernon Sykes (D), a state senator who was one in every of two Democrats on the panel and one of the authors of Ohio’s present anti-gerrymandering constitutional language, disagreed, saying in a press release that the courtroom appropriately interpreted the regulation “but was ignored by the Republicans on the Ohio Redistricting Commission.”

“We do believe we made a good faith attempt to satisfy the court orders,” stated Tierney, the governor’s spokesperson, including that Republicans on the fee didn’t see a means to attract Democratic and Republican districts proportional to statewide preferences with out violating different constitutional ideas together with the compactness of the districts. “We were just at a legal impasse because you could not change the laws of mathematics to comply with the court order.”

Though the Ohio Constitution’s weak enforcement mechanisms for its honest districting language supplied an incentive for Republicans to interrupt the foundations, that was solely half of the story: The different half was the looming presence of the federal courtroom system.

As the redistricting struggle dragged on, it started to threaten Ohio’s election schedule, and LaRose finally did separate the state House and Senate elections onto a separate poll, forcing Ohio voters to take part twice within the major course of. While the legislature refused to contemplate pushing the first dates farther again, anti-abortion activists in the meantime went to federal courtroom, urging the usage of a map the state Supreme Court had already rejected as a result of, they stated, the continued delays had been threatening Ohioans’ voting rights.

The state Supreme Court’s majority noticed the writing on the wall — two of the three federal judges on the case had been appointed by Donald Trump— and tried to stave off the federal intervention, which they known as a “dubious proposition.”

“Principles of federalism and comity cut against a federal court ordering the date of a primary election for purely state offices due to a dispute over the validity of state legislative maps under the state constitution,” the bulk on the state courtroom wrote, saying Ohio was caught in a “time loop” due to the facility the redistricting fee had assumed for itself.

The federal courtroom didn’t heed the state courtroom’s request. In April, it set a May 28 deadline, by which period it will drive the state to make use of the fee’s third set of maps — which the state Supreme Court had rejected as unconstitutional — except the redistricting fee and state Supreme Court had been in a position to “set aside their differences.”

The one dissent on the panel, Algenon Marbley, a Bill Clinton nominee and chief choose of the Southern District of Ohio, famous that Ohio was solely within the “redistricting saga” as a result of the redistricting fee’s Republicans had “manufactured a sufficient emergency” to impress the federal courtroom to intervene.

Republicans had been thrilled. “Now I know it’s been a tough night for all you libs,” tweeted Bill Seitz, a high-ranking Republican within the state House. “Pour yourself a glass of warm milk and you will sleep better. The game is over and you lost.”

The redistricting fee, now free of any stress to adjust to the regulation, merely voted to resubmit outdated maps at the moment as observers within the public assembly shouted for them to be held in contempt of courtroom. On May 27, the federal courtroom ordered Ohio to make use of the unconstitutional maps.

“That directive from the federal court, that was their shield, that is what the redistricting commission had in order to protect them, and it did protect them,” O’Connor stated. “I disagreed with the ruling by that federal three-judge panel. I disagreed with their authority, and I disagreed with the result.”

The incident was an ominous precursor to the right-wing embrace of an thought often known as the “independent state legislature” theory, which asserts — regardless of a surprising lack of historical precedent — that the U.S. Constitution doesn’t permit state supreme courts to constrain state legislatures on points associated to federal elections, comparable to redistricting guidelines, and that authorized disputes needs to be sorted out by federal judges. The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments over the speculation in December, and it could bless the thought, radically altering American election regulation.

Ohio Republicans are leaping on the bandwagon: In October, Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman and then-House Speaker Bob Cupp, two redistricting fee members who resigned from the panel after driving a lot of Republicans’ redistricting technique final yr, requested the U.S. Supreme Court to use unbiased state legislature idea to the scenario in Ohio.

“While many believe that the Ohio Supreme Court majority misinterpreted state law,” Huffman and Cupp wrote, “there is also the broader concern that the court assumed a role the federal constitution does not permit it to exercise. This is a matter that needs resolution by our nation’s highest court.”

The idea, O’Connor stated, “makes no sense.”

“It throws the whole concept that is the bedrock of our government, of checks and balances, out the window,” she added. “We’ve got 50 independent states, and the independence of the states I think is punctuated by the fact that we have state supreme courts as well as executive branches and legislative branches.”

The scenario with Ohio, with O’Connor off of the courtroom, has modified. Sharon Kennedy, a Republican justice who’d sided with the pro-redistricting fee minority on the courtroom final yr, was elected chief justice, and final month, DeWine appointed Joseph Deters, a Republican and a longtime pal of DeWine’s household, to fill O’Connor’s seat.

Tierney stated DeWine selected Deters to fill the emptiness due to his “conservative judicial philosophy” and due to his previous as a prosecutor, however wouldn’t say if the pair had spoken about redistricting earlier than the appointment.

But the story isn’t over but. The new yr has introduced with it an sudden twist. Twenty-two Republicans within the Ohio House joined all 32 Democrats to elect an upset House speaker: state Rep. Jason Stephens (R), regarded as a extra average decide than the earlier GOP caucus favourite, state Rep. Derek Merrin (R). Minority Leader Allison Russo, one in every of two Democrats on the redistricting fee, has said “there was no grand deal,” however the sudden new chief has shaken up the redistricting dialogue. Members of each side of the chamber — Stephens’ coalition and the Merrin-supporting Republicans — have stated they’re discussing subsequent steps on redistricting.

But to O’Connor — and Sykes, the Democratic co-chair of the fee — the reply is a constitutional modification.

“There needs to be an amendment to the constitution in order to have fair districting in Ohio,” she stated. “The people and the organizations that are interested in fair government and fair representation in that government are very much motivated.”

Republicans have a solution for that too: They need to pass their own constitutional amendment — making it far more troublesome for Ohio residents to amend the state structure. This would spell a harder street not just for redistricting reform advocates like O’Connor, but in addition for abortion rights activists seeking to enshrine those rights within the state’s structure.

The former chief justice is prepared for a struggle. She’s hopeful one other change to the structure can stop one other disaster and, possibly, produce maps that really symbolize Ohioans’ politics.

As she put it, “It’s the only fix that there is.”