On Thursday, a lawsuit was filed by the ACLU on behalf of the League of Women Voters of Ohio and the Ohio chapter of the African American trade union group the A. Philip Randolph Institute, as well as a group of individual Ohio voters, challenging the state house and senate maps adopted by the Ohio Redistricting Commission last week.
The commission adopted the maps on a 5-2 party-line vote with Republican members voting in favor of the map. The lawsuit alleges the map is a clear partisan gerrymander that violates provisions of the state constitution requiring that districts not be drawn “to favor or disfavor a political party,” and that the distribution of seats “shall correspond closely to the statewide preferences of the voters of Ohio.” Ohio voters amended the state constitution on November 3, 2015, by a margin of 71.5% to 28.5% to add this requirement for redistricting maps.
The complaint urges the court to either order the commission to draw amended maps or adopt maps on its own.
