OHIO — Attorney General Dave Yost announced Thursday he is suing the Biden administration for an expected six-month delay in the release of U.S. Census Bureau data, which could in turn affect the state's new redistricting process.

The Census data is normally released on March 30, but the administration cited the pandemic as to why it may not be released until Sept. 30.

“The federal government has chosen to drag its feet by delaying the release of census data instead of following the law,” Yost said in a news release. “The people of Ohio have found ways to meet their responsibilities throughout the COVID-19 pandemic – adapting how we run businesses, caring for loved ones, home schooling children — why should the government create a double standard?”

Secretary of State Frank LaRose called the delay "unworkable" on Twitter, saying he approached Yost to explore further options. 

 

Legal Analyst Rory Riley-Topping said although the Census Bureau attributed COVID-19 to the delay, no details were provided and the government must give a justification.

"Really, the government has to provide a justification for why they're taking any actions such as this here. They didn't really provide a lot of detail in that sense," Riley-Topping said.

She said the lawsuit was expected from a political perspective because of the new redistricting process voters opted for in 2015.

The process will engage a bipartisan system to redraw districts. It was passed in 2018 by the Ohio General Assembly to reform the process for congressional redistricting — a topic that's been widely debated for the last decade. 

In 2010, Republican lawmakers redrew district lines that would favor their party by a 12-4 margin. That map was later ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2019. 

The new redistricting process will limit how many times counties can be split and the minority party must agree to the new map. 

The process will have a variety steps — one being that the finalized drawings of the state legislative districts must be submitted Sept. 1, which would be 29 days before the new deadline for Census data.

"If there's any question as to the validity of the data that is being used to make these congressional districts, I think AG Yost was anticipating that it would certainly be challenged here at the state level from various advocacy groups," Riley-Topping said.

The lawsuit names two officials as defendants: Acting U.S. Census Bureau Director Ron Jarmin and acting U.S. Commerce Secretary Wynn Coggins. Yost said the state may be forced to used what is called "alternative data" if the Census data isn't released on time. Alternative data could be Census estimates or other available data.