COLUMBUS, Ohio-The Ohio Supreme Court heard oral arguments via a hearing Wednesday relative to three pending lawsuits challenging Republican-approved state legislative district maps, controversial maps approved in September by the Ohio Redistricting Commission (ORC), which is under fire and accused of  approving illegally drawn maps that are racist and that favor Republican candidates for office. (Editor's note: The ORC also has jurisdiction under state law to approve congressional district maps when the state legislature reaches an impasse on the issue but this article pertains to the controversy around the ORC's drawing of maps for state legislative districts, and three pending lawsuits that say the new maps are unconstitutional).

Set to take effect for the 2022 elections for open seats on the  Ohio state legislature, such maps determine state district boundaries for elections of state representatives and state senators in Ohio, and in a discriminatory fashion, the lawsuits say. Currently, Republicans control the Ohio House of Representatives and the Ohio Senate, which is partly why the ORC is largely Republican.

An amendment to the state constitution approved by voters in 2015 changed the way the process for drawing congressional and state legislative maps occurs and created the ORC, though districts are still drawn initially in conjunction with population dynamics in response to the U.S. Census every 10 years. The year 2020 marked 10-years since the last applicable census and, accordingly, this year is the first time that the new process that employs authority to the ORC to step in for the state legislature when a partisan conflict ensues over the maps has been put to a test.

The first lawsuit for which the state Supreme Court heard oral arguments at Monday's hearing was filed by the ACLU primarily on behalf of the League of Women Voters and the A. Philip Randolph Institute and the second by the National Democratic Redistricting Committee on behalf of a group of Ohio voters. A third suit was brought by plaintiffs who say the maps dilute Black Muslim votes. It was filed by the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, the Ohio Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and the Ohio Environmental Council. All three of the lawsuits were filed in the Ohio Supreme Court and allege in large part that the ORC purposely gerrymandered the maps to help Republicans win elections over Democrats for state House and Senate races with the plaintiffs in the third lawsuit claiming also that the maps have racial implications that raise constitutional questions since a majority of Black and Muslim voters and voters of color in general are Democrats.

"OOC believes that the maps currently under scrutiny by the state's highest court are unconstitutional because of the ways they dilute the power of voters in Black, brown, immigrant, and Muslim communities through "cracking and packing," a spokesperson for the Ohio Organizing Collaborative said in a statement to Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's Black digital news leader.

Led by Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor, a Republican and the court's first woman chief justice, the seven member majority Republican court is composed of four Republicans and three Democrats, and it remains to be seen if the justices of the state's highest court, a majority of them women and only one of them Black, will rule along party lines as to the maps, sources said Wednesday. (Editor note: Justice Melody Stewart, a Democrat and a former 8th District Court of Appeals judge out of Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland, is the only Black on the Ohio Supreme Court, and she is the first Black ever elected to the court).

The maps were approved by the commission (ORC) 5-2 on Sept. 16 with Democrats House Minority Leader Emilia Sykes of Akron and her father, state Sen Vernon Sykes, also of Akron, refusing to support the measure. Both of them are Black.

The five Republican members of the ORC, including Ohio Gov Mike DeWine and Secretary of State Frank LaRose, eagerly voted for the new maps and subsequently issued a press release praising the process. The issue moved to the seven member commission (ORC) after state lawmakers as a whole and along party lines could not agree to the redistricting maps. Under the new redistricting rules that Ohio voters approved at the ballot box in 2015 the maps are for four years because Democrats and Republicans in the state legislature could not agree on 10-year maps.

Ohio lawmakers are term-limited. State law restricts state legislators in Ohio from holding office for more than eight years, and only after a four year period out of office.

(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.