The ruling, by a three-judge panel from the U.S. District Court in Cincinnati, ordered new maps to be drawn before the 2020 election. The decision is subject to appeal. The Supreme Court, which last year sidestepped the issue of whether partisan gerrymandering violates the U.S. Constitution, is expected to rule this spring on two additional cases from Maryland, where Democrats drew the maps, and from North Carolina, where Republicans drew them.
Ohio’s maps, in effect since 2012, have solidified a congressional delegation that has never varied from 12 Republicans and four Democrats — or 75 percent for one party in a swing state where presidential and statewide elections are often close.
In their unanimous ruling, the judges wrote, “In this case, the bottom line is that the dominant party in state government manipulated district lines in an attempt to control electoral outcomes and thus direct the political ideology of the state’s congressional delegation.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
