Columbus, Ohio (AP) — Ohio voting rights groups moved to dismiss their lawsuit against Ohio’s unconstitutional congressional map on Tuesday, arguing that prolonging the legal debate over where to draw county boundaries is not in the interest of Ohio voters.
The ACLU of Ohio, on behalf of the Ohio League of Women Voters and others, told the Ohio Supreme Court that they are willing to live with the US House map approved on March 2, 2022, and used in last year’s election. “(i) rather than the constant turmoil caused by the cycles of remapping and the lawsuits that followed.”
Democrats scored victories under that map, taking five out of 15 seats in the US House of Representatives, compared to four out of 16 they previously held. Ohio lost one seat in the 2020 census due to lagging population growth.
“The petitioners do not wish to launch another round of mapping and challenges, given the recent history of mapping in Ohio,” the Tuesday filing read.
That history included the court dismissing two separate congressional maps and five sets of statehouse maps — which describe Ohio’s House of Representatives and Ohio Senate districts in Columbus — as gerrymandering in favor of governing Republicans. However, those maps had to be used to elect candidates in 2022, as the disputes ended in a legal deadlock.
Since the vote advocates’ lawsuit was first filed early last year, the political landscape has become more conservative. The Republican Party’s supermajority in the House of Representatives grew, and the state Supreme Court, which would decide their case, saw the retirement of a Republican chief justice who had fielded a swing vote against the Republican-leaning maps.
The impeachment motion also comes as supporters prepare a redistricting reform amendment for Ohio’s 2024 ballot. After an initial denial, Citizens Apolitical resubmitted its petition on Tuesday.
Before filing the suit on Tuesday, the Ohio Supreme Court asked both parties to file briefs explaining how the US Supreme Court’s June ruling on the Ohio map will affect the state’s case. The nation’s Supreme Court overturned the ruling in the case and ordered further consideration in light of its rejection days earlier in the North Carolina case of the so-called independent state legislature theory, which states that legislatures have ultimate power to set the rules for federal elections and cannot be overturned by the courts. Country.