Good news (presumably) out of the Buckeye State as regards the U.S. House districts which will be used in 2024, though by a Democrat-friendly state law they will still be invalidated before the 2026 elections. The 2024 districts will be the same ones which were used in 2022, which may cause one to wonder why this is considered to be good news seeing as how Democrats were the ones who benefited in '22. More on that below, but first, some history:

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 controlled forever.

Democrat gerrymanders had played a huge role in their eternal command 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 the 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, Florida, New York and Wisconsin. Ohio, until 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According to the linked article, Ohio Democrats have withdrawn their lawsuit.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. Nevermind merely supporting Kaptur, 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 was defeated by Democrat Emilia Sykes (definitely not a beauty queen) in a relentlessly negative campaign from which the fractured GOP never recovered and the seat was lost.

Democrats are clearly confident of holding 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.

Tags:

Ohio U.S. House Redistricting Backfire