Classless no-show by two justices at Chief Justice O’Connor’s portrait unveiling:

During her 37-year tenure in Ohio judicial and political office, retiring Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, a Republican, has been a class act. She’s consistently put conviction over party and justice over partisanship, establishing herself as a true heir to the popular 23-year Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer, who died in office in April 2010. At the time, Moyer was the nation’s longest-serving state Supreme Court justice.

Seven months after Moyer’s death, Ohio voters selected O’Connor, who’d served on the Ohio Supreme Court since 2003, to replace him and become the state’s first female chief justice.

In the 12 years since, O’Connor — a Greater Cleveland native who cut her political teeth in Summit County — has made her mark on the state judiciary, from trying to improve voter knowledge and participation in judicial elections to upgrades in court technology and procedure. Not to mention path-breaking bail reform, and a centralized state criminal sentencing database that’s still under development. Along the way, O’Connor, who served as lieutenant governor and public safety director under Gov. Bob Taft, also became the longest-serving woman in statewide elective office.

Ohio’s judicial age limit is the reason O’Connor, 71, is retiring at the end of this year.

So you’d think that when Maureen O’Connor’s official portrait was unveiled last Friday in the Grand Concourse at the Thomas J. Moyer Ohio Judicial Center in Columbus, there’d be a big turnout.

In some ways, there was. Former Govs. Taft and John Kasich were on hand. So was the high court’s first Black justice, Yvette McGee Brown, who served in an appointed capacity from 2011 to 2012 to finish out O’Connor’s term after O’Connor was elected chief justice.

Four of the current high court justices were also present. But two were not — Justices Sharon L. Kennedy, whom voters chose Nov. 8 to replace O’Connor as chief justice, and Pat DeWine, son of Gov. Mike DeWine. Gov. DeWine also skipped the event.

Their absence was classless and unneeded, reflecting the bitter intracourt disputes that erupted this year over bail reform and redistricting cases. Yet Republican Justice Pat Fischer, who’d sided with fellow Republicans Kennedy and Pat DeWine on the losing side of those disputes, was present — appropriately. O’Connor’s long and meaningful time in office was about so much more than just 2022 redistricting disputes.

In an equally petty maneuver, Kennedy, Pat DeWine and Fischer earlier had voted (unsuccessfully) to block putting O’Connor’s official portrait in the Grand Concourse, The Columbus Dispatch reported.

At least Fischer had the class to show up for the unveiling. That Kennedy and Pat DeWine did not suggests trouble ahead, with divisive redistricting decisions and an important abortion case looming.

The Ohio Supreme Court and its new chief justice need to work hard next year to overcome the divisions and partisan bitterness that attended this year’s redistricting rulings, when the GOP’s O’Connor and three Democratic justices consistently sided together over the three other Republican justices. Redistricting will be back on the docket. That puts a premium on careful, collegial and less partisan deliberations.

Maureen O’Connor’s praiseworthy run of public service — which started in Summit County, where she successively served as a Probate Court magistrate, Common Pleas judge and Summit County prosecutor — deserves all Ohioans’ applause. That should include all the court’s justices, too, including the two who failed to show up to honor her last Friday.

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