COLUMBUS, Ohio — There are several new updates in Ohio’s congressional redistricting lawsuit in front of the Ohio Supreme Court.

What You Need To Know

  • The petitioners in the case want the congressional map thrown out, however, the separate litigants are asking for different solutions to the problem

  • The common theme among all the filings is what has been alleged in the past, that the map unfairly favors the Republican Party

  • National Democrats, led by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, are asking the justices to throw out the map and have their own mapmakers draw a new one

  • A nonpartisan voting rights groups wants the map tossed and tweaked, but only want the General Assembly or the Ohio Redistricting Commission to do the tweaking

The petitioners in the case want the congressional map thrown out, however, the separate litigants are asking for different solutions to the problem.

The common theme among all the filings is what has been alleged in the past, that the map unfairly favors the Republican Party.

The map that was passed favors Republicans in at least 10 of the state’s 15 congressional districts, which is 66%, when Republicans have only won 54% of the vote statewide the last 10 years.

National Democrats, led by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, are asking the justices to throw out the map and have their own mapmakers draw a new one.

The group wants the court to appoint a special master to draw their own map should the General Assembly not make the map more fair to Democrats and closer to an 8-7 map.

Meanwhile, nonpartisan voting rights groups, the ACLU of Ohio and the League of Women Voters of Ohio, want the map tossed and tweaked, but only want the General Assembly or the Ohio Redistricting Commission to do the tweaking.

The advocates said, in their filing, if the districts around Hamilton and Franklin Counties are tweaked, then it would be ok with the rest of the map.

That sentiment has led to a lot of drama amongst other voters and advocates.

Spectrum News 1 legal analyst Rory Riley-Topping said there is a legal precedent in this election cycle for what the petitioners are asking for.

“What they cite in the briefs with regard to this argument about a special master and simultaneously working on remedial maps or situations that we saw in both North Carolina and New York, and both of those states had factually similar situations occur where the state Constitution had deferred that power to the General Assembly,” said Riley-Topping. “General Assembly was ruled to have not met the state’s constitution by that state Supreme Court. And in that instance, the special master was appointed to oversee that process.” ​

​It remains to be seen how the commissioners will respond. They have 20 days to do so.