The legal briefs submitted on behalf of the Republican members of the Ohio Redistricting Commission, arguing why they should not be held in contempt for disobeying orders from the Ohio Supreme Court, seem transparently designed to provoke a state constitutional crisis.
Ohio citizens twice passed constitutional amendments last decade in support of reforming the redistricting process so they could choose their legislators, rather than the other way around.
The Court has THREE times told the Commission that its legislative maps don’t meet the new requirements. Each time the Commission’s GOP members have thumbed their noses at the Court, resubmitting maps that were identical to or worse than what the Court had rejected.
The Republicans on the Commission are clearly showing their disdain for the Court.
We believe the Governor, the Secretary of State, the Senate President, and the Speaker of the House must be held in contempt by the Court.
These four members in particular should be singled out for their ultra-partisan actions (the Governor is not being partisan so much as he’s being chicken for his failure to do what he knows is right).
The present crisis is reminiscent of the mid-1950s after the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren outlawed segregated schools, and by implication, other public facilities as well, including swimming pools and public beaches.
Some Southern state and municipal legislators feigned compliance, moving with “all deliberate speed”. But in short order most came to embrace “massive resistance” to the Brown v. Board decision, eventually forcing a reluctant President Eisenhower to send in federal troops to protect schoolchildren.
Black people are especially familiar with this history and must call out this Republican hypocrisy. The GOP packs Democratic-leaning voters into tight urban districts because that leaves them free to design select suburban communities with rural areas that create legislative super-majorities that nullify urban voters.
The result of this selfish political gamesmanship is a General Assembly that eradicates home rule at its convenience, ignores its constitutional duty to fund public schools adequately and equitably, promotes a cowboys and Native Americans mentality with permitless concealed carry and “stand your ground” legislation. (Guess who the new natives are!)
By the way, and not by coincidence, the same supermajority caucuses intimidate the Governor while positioning themselves to receive lavish contributions from lobbyists for nursing homes, paycheck cash services, fossil fuel interests and assorted other profiteers intent on abandoning our elderly, depressing wages, banning books, whitewashing history and polluting our air and water.
Talk about contempt!
The Ohio Supreme Court should sequester ORC members in a room until they devise a redistricting plan compatible with the State constitution.
Alternatively, they should hire a special master and have her devise new districts. She could probably do it by Friday, at which point the increasingly haughty Secretary of State should stop his supercilious wailing about what can’t be done and instead rally his team to determine how to hold a second primary in time for us to have real choices in November and a truly representative General Assembly next year.
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