Ohio Supreme Court upheld voters’ will | News, Sports, Jobs

DEAR EDITOR:

In 2015, 70 percent of Ohio voters endorsed a constitutional amendment that prohibited a gerrymandered map for legislative districts.

In 2021, the Republican leaders in the statehouse thumbed their collective noses at the citizens of Ohio and created a map that was absolutely gerrymandered. It took the Ohio Supreme Court to put an end to this charade, and the court will be carefully watching the next attempt to draw a map.

Why did the Republicans in positions of leadership think they could get away with a map that heavily favored Republican candidates in both state races and congressional races? Ohio is a state that has voted about 54 percent Republican to 46 percent Democrat in recent elections. But according to the Washington Post, the new statehouse map would have given Republicans overwhelming majorities in the Ohio House and Senate. This gerrymandered majority would be somewhere between 61 and 68 of the 99 seats in the House and between 20 and 24 of the 33 seats in the Senate. The answer to why this happened is easy to see — it was a pure political power grab by people who thought they could run roughshod over the Constitution and the will of their constituents.

Luckily, the Ohio Supreme Court, in a bipartisan ruling, stopped this travesty. The court wants to see new maps drawn quickly and fairly. I applaud the Ohio Supreme Court for respecting the will of the people of Ohio but, more importantly, for upholding the state’s constitution.

PATRICIA ROGAN

Greene