Trial begins next week on ACLU's Ohio gerrymandering suit

CINCINNATI — A federal trial is set to start Monday in an ACLU Ohio lawsuit challenging Ohio's gerrymandering.

Due to an aggressive redistricting operation, Ohio's current congressional map, enacted in December 2011, is gerrymandered to lock in a 12-to-4 advantage for Republican candidates.

Although the number of Democrat and Republican voters in Ohio is roughly even, gerrymandering has allowed the Republican Party to secure 75 percent of the seats in the U.S. House of Representatives in every election since the map was drawn.

The ACLU of Ohio, the ACLU, and the law firm of Covington and Burling challenged that map, seeking to replace it with a new one before the 2020 election. A judicial panel has ruled the ACLU provided sufficient evidence in discovery to proceed to trial on the claim that Ohio’s map violates the federal constitution.