COLUMBUS, Ohio — Republican lawmakers will introduce a new congressional map in Senate Bill 286 next week. The Ohio Senate General Government Budget Committee will meet at 3 p.m. Tuesday, which is when the public could first see the plan, and then again on Wednesday at 10 a.m.

Because the map is part of the bill, it would need a simple majority in the Ohio House and Senate chambers to pass. However, with the filing deadline set for March 4, lawmakers will want to pass the bill with an emergency clause.

In order to do that, each chamber needs a two-thirds majority to approve, which would be 66 in the Ohio House and 20 in the Ohio Senate. While the Ohio Senate has 25 Republicans, more than enough, the Ohio House  has 64 Republicans. This could result in the General Assembly punting the map to the Ohio Redistricting Commission.

In January, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that the congressional map drawn by lawmakers was unconstitutional. In a 4-3 vote, with Republican Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor joining the three Democrats on the bench, the court said the map unfairly favored the Republican Party.

The map passed by the state legislature in November would have favored the GOP in at least 12 of the 15 races, giving them 80% of the vote.

However, Republicans have only earned 54% of the vote in the last 10 years.

While U.S. law requires states to redraw U.S. House district boundaries every decade, the boundaries approved by the House and Senate would have only been effective for four years. A 2018 referendum approved by voters states that maps that don’t get bipartisan support can only be enacted for four years.

The referendum states that districts cannot “unduly favor or disfavor any political party or its incumbents.”