A Federal Court Struck Down Ohio's Super-Gerrymandered Congressional Map-- Creating A True Swing State

The only chance the Ohio GOP has to continue winning congressional majorities is if the US Supreme Court allows extreme partisan gerrymandering-- and most people say it will

Early yesterday, a federal court unanimously struck down-- as unconstitutional-- one of the most corrupt congressional maps any Republican legislature has ever passed-- Ohio's. The court ruled that the new boundaries must be in place for the 2020 elections and the 3 judges gave the state until June 14 to show them a fair map. If the court isn't happy with what the legislature comes up with it will appoint a special master to draw the districts. (This is very similar to a court ruling in Michigan 2 weeks ago.) The 3 judges who ruled were appointed by Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Although Hillary was so fundamentally wrong for Ohio that the state is lately looked at as a red bastion-- it's a actually a contestable swing state. She lost to Trump-- after giving up on the state-- by a whopping 2,841,005 (51.69%) to 2,394,164 (43.56%). Hillary only won in 8 of Ohio's 88 counties. In 2008, Obama took Ohio 2,940,044 (51.49%) to 2,677,820 (46.92), winning in 22 counties, including all the big ones. Obama took Ohio again in 2012-- 2,827,709 (50.67%) to 2,661,437 (47.69%). Last year Sherrod Brown was reelected convincingly-- 2,358,508 (53.4%) to Trumpist Jim Renacci's 2,057,559 (46.6%). Brown won 16 counties, exactly double the number Hillary won. A PPP survey shows that Trump would beat Hillary again in Ohio-- 50-42%, but the same poll shows that either Bernie or Status Quo Joe would beat Trump next year.

All that said-- and the GOP gerrymandering of the state gave the Republicans 61 seats in the state House to the Democrats' 38. And in the state Senate it was 24 for the GOP and 9 for the Dems. In the Congress, Ohio has one Democratic senator and one Republican senator-- but the state's 16-member House delegation has 12 Republicans and just 4 Democrats, just like it did since these districts were drawn. As Rich Exner wrote for the Clevland Plain Dealer yesterday, "In each of the four congressional elections with this map, Republicans have won the same 12 seats and Democrats the same four-- just as designed. And the GOP has won those 75 percent of elections with just over 50 percent of the vote."

The court didn't beat around the bush; their ruling stated that "invidious partisan intent-- the intent to disadvantage Democratic voters and entrench Republican representatives in power-- dominated the map-drawing process... Ohio Republicans understood that Speaker Boehner would have considerable input in the 2012 map and were committed to enacting a map that he supported... In some cases, it was clear that national Republican operatives had the authority to 'sign off' on changes before they were implemented by the State-level team'... We are convinced by the evidence that this partisan gerrymander was intentional and effective and that no legitimate justification accounts for its extremity... the 2012 map dilutes the votes of Democratic voters by packing and cracking them into districts that are so skewed toward one party that the electoral outcome is predetermined. We conclude that the map unconstitutionally burdens associational rights by making it more difficult for voters and certain organizations to advance their aims, be they pro-Democratic or pro-democracy."

This hypothetical map was created by Kos redistricting expert Stephen Wolf. All things being equal (no wave elections) it would result in 8 Republican mostly rural seats and 7 Democratic seats, with one very swingy district (OH-09) in Lorain, Medina and Erie counties. Ungerrymandering the state would be expected to bring Democrats a safe Cincinnati seat (OH-01), two Columbus seats, instead of one (OH-02 and OH-12), a Toledo-based seat (OH-05), and three of the four seats in the northeast corner of the state, instead of two (OH-11, OH-13, OH-16).

An old friend of this blog and of Blue America, former Congresswoman Mary Jo Kilroy, was successfully targeted in the last round of unconstitutional Ohio gerrymandering. This morning she told me that "Ohio voters deserve the right to elect their congressional representatives without having the votes of democrats being diluted. For the last 7 years, results have been preordained by a map that both 'cracks' and 'packs' creating 12 very safe Republican seats to 4 safe Democratic seats which doesn’t truly reflect voting patterns in Ohio. Republicans and their corporate sponsors  have used their power to choose who our representatives will be. Extremes of gerrymandering contribute to the dysfunction in Washington where too often the needs of working class and low income people are ignored and those of the big banks and big Pharma are served. These unconstitutionally gerrymandered districts suppress Democratic turnout and have an impact on other state and local races." We didn't get a chance to ask her if she noticed that that potential new district just north of Columbus (OH-12), looks like it would love to be represented by her.