Gonidakis v. Ohio Redistricting Commission

In 2015, Ohio voters amended the Ohio Constitution to ban partisan gerrymandering. After the 2020 Census, two legislative redistricting plans were struck down by the Ohio Supreme Court for failing to comply with the Ohio Constitution’s ban on partisan gerrymandering. The Ohio Redistricting Commission failed to produce compliant maps by the court-imposed deadline of February 17, 2022. The Ohio supreme court then initiated contempt proceedings against the Commission’s members.

On February 18, 2022, a group of individual Ohio voters filed a federal lawsuit, asking the court to implement a legislative redistricting plan that had been struck down by the Ohio Supreme Court for being a partisan gerrymander. The League of Women Voters of Ohio, together with the A. Phillip Randolph Institute, filed a motion to intervene on February 20, 2022, on behalf of Ohio voters. The League urged the federal court to abstain from acting on the plaintiffs’ request while the Ohio Supreme Court resolved the Commission’s failure to draw constitutional legislative districts.

The federal court ordered that unless the Commission and Ohio Supreme Court agreed upon a map by May 28, 2022, it would move the primary election to August 2, 2022, and impose a map that had been previously rejected by the Ohio Supreme Court as unconstitutional. The federal court justified this move by noting that many counties had already begun loading the map into their systems, and statutory periods for candidate residency and registration had already gone into effect. The court stated this map would only be used for the upcoming November election. The Commission failed to produce a new map and the court’s order went into effect.

The League is represented by Covington and Burling, LLP, the ACLU Foundation of Ohio, Inc., and the ACLU.