Posted on 09/20/2023 9:46:21 AM PDT by PermaRag
In a slight surprise, Ohio’s congressional maps will remain unchanged for the 2024 cycle. The plaintiffs for a lawsuit that challenged the constitutionality of the maps dropped their case. As a result, the Ohio Supreme Court dropped the case without comment.
This unusual choice by the plaintiffs likely comes as a response to the imminent threat of a stronger Republican gerrymander that could change the current map’s 10-5 Republican majority into a harsher 13-2 majority. However, this only delays the inevitable – the map will still need to be redrawn after the 2024 cycle, as it was only approved for use in two cycles due to a lack of bipartisan support.
(Excerpt) Read more at elections-daily.com ...
Years ago, redistricting was almost exclusively a once-a-decade thing which took place after each decennial Census. District lines were redrawn to take effect in years ending in '2' and those lines normally remained unaltered until the next Census.
Those days are long gone.
Following the "Gingrich Revolution" of 1994, in which Republicans not only regained control of the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years, the party also began making significant inroads at the state legislative level (especially in the South), which by 2000 meant that the GOP had control of the redistricting process in many states which Democrats had contolled forever.
Democrat gerrymanders had played a huge role in their eternal control of the U.S. House (and many state legislatures) and they were not about to let that go without a fight. When Democrats were suddenly no longer winning the game they had worked so hard to rig in this past, they simply changed the rules to try to rig things again in their favor.
As a result, legislatures (which may now be controlled by eeevil Republicans) are bypassed whenever possible, and the process of redrawing the lines is shunted off to liberal judges or "non-partisan" commissions. Furthermore, the process is no longer limited to taking place once per decade; it ends only when Democrats say it ends. Therefore "re-redistricting" has become an increasingly common event.
Just since 2022, Democrats have sued or otherwise conspired to alter legal GOP-held House districts in several states including, but possibly not limited to: Alabama, South Carolina, Louisiana, Tennessee, Georgia, New York and Wisconsin. Ohio, untl a couple of weeks ago, was also on the list.
According to the linked article, Ohio Democrats have withdrawn their lawsuit. The author hypothesizes that the reason for the sudden change of heart was that liberals feared the GOP legislature creating an even better map for their party. Often, when a court invalidates a map, it has some liberal group draw the map (e.g. in Pennsylvania) and doesn't give the Republicans another chance at it.
It's hard to tell what all the fear would be about in this case. When a court threw out a partisan Democrat gerrymander in Maryland prior to the 2022 elections (the first time a Democrat plan had been quashed in many years, maybe ever) it allowed the leftist legislature to redraw the map -- which it did, resulting in only a slight change in one district, which the Democrats then won anyway.
The same thing happened in Ohio too, when the (allegedly "Republican") state Supreme Court tossed the original 2022 map and gave the Republicans another chance (!). At which point the Republicans proceeded to shoot themselves in the foot; they aren't called the Stupid Party for nothing. They deliberately sacrificed Republican Congressman Steve Chabot by creating a Cincinnati ghetto district for him, which naturally he lost to a liberal Democrat. The GOP was supposed to offset this with a pickup or two elsewhere in the state, but they blew it.
The Cincy district (CD-1) is rated as D+1 or D+2 -- it contains the good area of Warren County in addition to the bad parts of the city. So it's winnable but not a likely pickup.
CD-9 (Toledo area) is an R+ district, but the Democrats ran a typically dirty campaign against the Republican candidate on behalf of sweet, old grandmotherly (LOL) incumbent Marcy Kaptur, a liberal who has been in office since approximately the Truman Administration. The Democrats spent more against J.R. Majewski than he was able to raise himself; being a conservative, the GOPe was not anxious to help him and so they didn't.
In the very marginal CD-13 (Akron) open seat, the GOP was split, with Trump endorsing former beauty queen Madison Gesiotto, who narrowly won the primary but then lost to Democrat Emilia Sykes (definitely not a beauty queen) in a relentlessly negative campaign in which the fractured GOP never recovered.
Democrats are clearly confident of hold all 3 of these seats in 2024, hence their acceptance of the current "Republican" map and their reluctance to take a chance on changing it.
I forgot to put Florida on the list, the GOP is about to get screwed there too.
A truly good-sized “red wave” is going to be needed at the Congressional level in November, 2024 just to offset the dozen or more seats the Rats are going to seize by “re-redistricting” alone. Good luck.
The only way they get away with it is if the republicans let them. They will.
The author hypothesizes that the reason for the sudden change of heart was that liberals feared the GOP legislature creating an even better map for their party
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This is how you negotiate. Lesson to other republicans. If you are in a position of power, you demonstrate that you are not only unwilling to capitulate to unreasonable demands, but you prove that there could be more at stake.
That’s a good approach, but the liberal courts often make it impossible.
For example in Alabama, the liberal federal court did give the GOP another chance to create a second black-racist district for 2024 and beyond.
But then the court declared that it was not satisfied with the new result — you see, it still apparently wasn’t GUARANTEED to elect another Democrat — and now the court is going to have some liberals draw the map. This stuff is never truly about race, it’s about helping Democrats and screwing Republicans.
With a House so closely divided, even just a little help from corrupt liberal judges in obtaining new Democrat gerrymanders will go a long way. And the Rats are very likely going to get far more than “just a little help” between now and next November.
As an ohioan, i think some of our districts are bizarre.
I would draw 2 verticle lines north/south and cut the state in thirds. I’d ten draw 4 horizontal lines east to west, ending in 12 sections. I’d draw a circle around Cincy, columbus, cleveland and toledo. That would give me 16 districts that i’d adjust a bit “nort south east west” to get to the 750k or so number for a congressional district.
If you want to see what the worst (most gerrymandered) districts currently in use in the U.S. look like -- with nary a peep from the Republican party which is massively screwed by those districts -- check out Illinois and its infamous "strips of bacon" districts:
Illinois House election results from 2022
Republicans in conjunction with MALDEF (politics do make strange bedfellows) DID tepidly challenge the congressional districts in Illinois, but a panel of liberal federal judges saw through the facade and ruled against them.
The argument of the plaintiffs was that the Democrat gerrymander "actually reduced the number of Latino-majority districts in Chicago and the surrounding suburbs" -- but the judges realized that another map might help *Republicans* along with the Hispanics, and they certainly couldn't allow that. So they didn't.
While Republican maps are routinely tossed by liberal judges simply for being "too partisan", note that in this case the Republicans were forced to make their argument only in conjunction with a protected racial group -- because there's no such thing as "too partisan" when Democrats are the ones playing hardball with redistricting, so another reason has to be found to challenge them with.
The snake district along the ohio river on the east is an eyesore and probably attracts a judge’s attention immediately.
So if the laser focus is on D1 and D9 (Kaptur), then atomize D13.
Take at least one seat back; run some unbeatable GOP heavyweight against Kaptur; and leave one obvious D seat in Cincy -- thus, no winnable lawsuit, and we pick up 2 seats.
Cincinnati (Hamilton County) was FOREVER split into 2 districts pretty much right down the middle in terms of population — unlike today — and so was Columbus even back when it was still a good city and the OSU/state govt. nutzoids and ghetto animals hadn’t completely taken over. Splitting allowed dilution of the undesirable voters.
So I don’t see the problem with continuing to treat Hamilton County that way, but as of the current map all of the bad areas are in Ghetto District 1 along with the unfortunate folks in Warren County. The good portion of HamCo is now in district 8, which is a first (it was always CD-1 and CD-2)
CD-9, as illustrated in 2022, is effectively being held hostage by the GOPe, which will prop up the doddering old Democrat & backstab any conservative Republican until those pesky primary voters do the “right” thing and nominate a squish. Who at least might vote a little better in the House than Kaptur does.
Why they compacted CD-13 to let Summit County dominate and took out the rightward-moving area around Youngstown is also questionable. If they left it like it was in 2020 when scumbag Timmy Ryan vacated it, the GOP would likely have slam-dunked a win there. They probably thought they still would. Oops.
Youngstown and Akron may both be shitholes, but the Youngstown area has been getting smarter in the era of Trump and of Bidenomics; Akron, sadly, has not.
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