Ohio's current congressional map to stand and its appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court of federal court ruling to redraw it to be dismissed after the Supreme Court rules it lacks jurisdiction over the issue on appeals from Maryland and North Carolina, the high court saying the states must fight it out....The ruling says federal courts should not meddle in the crafting of a state's partisan-based congressional map, even if it is unconstitutional....Writing the dissent for the four liberals on the court Associate Justice Elena Kagan, an Obama appointee, called the decision by the high court's majority on Maryland and North Carolina's gerrymandering cases "tragically wrong." Kagan said the majority gives gerrymandering a pass on judicial review....Ohio's congressional map yields 12 Republicans in congress and four Democrats, three of the four Democrats female and two of the four Democrats Black....By editor Kathy Wray Coleman of Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywlemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog

By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief. Coleman is an experienced Black legal and political reporter who covered the 2008 presidential election for the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio and the presidential elections in 2012 and 2016 at Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com. 

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, WASHINGTON, D.C.-In a divided 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday in gerrymandering cases on appeal from Maryland and North Carolina that it lacks jurisdiction to intervene relative to partisan congressional maps drawn by state legislatures, even if they are unconstitutionally gerrymandered, such decision of which likely means that an appeal from a ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S.District Court for the Southern District of Ohio that deemed Ohio's current congressional map unconstitutional and ordered the state legislature to redraw it by June 14 will be dismissed.

That federal court order to revise Ohio's congressional map by June, which has come and gone, was stayed pending Thursday's ruling, a ruling that says it is not the role of federal courts to meddle in the crafting of a state's partisan-based congressional maps.

The ruling makes clear that Ohio's congressional map will stay intact until 2020 when Ohio draws new congressional district lines, such lines of which are redrawn every 10 years.
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Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost

These types of appeals, whether Ohio or any other state, by rule, skip the federal appeals courts, which in the Ohio case is the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, and go directly to the U.S. Supreme Court, Ohio's appeal filed in May by Attorney General Dave Yost, a Republican who won election last November over Democrat Steve Dettelbach, a former district attorney for the Northern District of Ohio in Cleveland.

Thursday's decision impacts states in general and let's gerrymandering live on for now in Ohio and neighboring Michigan, and in North Carolina and Maryland

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion for the majority and was joined by the other conservatives, including Justice Clarence Thomas, the only Black on the court.

Roberts said his court had neither a constitutional directive nor a legal standard that gives it the power or authority to intervene in state matters of sort.

The court's four liberals dissented, both Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor appointees of former president Barack Obama, the country's first Black president.

Obama won North Carolina in 2008 but lost it to Mitt Romney in 2012, partly because of congressional map manipulation by Republican lawmakers, Democrats argue.

In writing for the minority Kagan said the majority incorrectly gives gerrymandering a pass on judicial review and that the decision is "tragically wrong."

She said that now is not the time to abandon democracy.

"Of all the times to abandon the court's duty to declare the law, this was not the one," Kagan wrote. 

Democrats in Ohio say the Republican-controlled Ohio General Assembly arbitrarily drew the current electoral map and others to favor Republican candidates over Democrats for elections to congress.

Brought by the League of Women Voters and ACLU as plaintiffs, among others, Ohio's now defunct gerrymandering lawsuit was filed against John Kasich, a term-limited Republican governor who left office in January and is succeeded by GOP Gov. Mike DeWine, former secretary of state Jon Husted, now the lieutenant governor, and Republican leaders of the House and Senate.

It followed the voter approved Issue 1 which Yost, as the state attorney general, says would conflict with the federal court's attempted intervention in ordering the state legislature to redraw its unconstitutional map.

Ohio voters approved Issue 1 at the ballot box in May of 2018, a constitutional amendment carved via bi-partisan cooperation and aimed at fairer congressional districts, Democrats still not satisfied.

Following a reduction in population per the 2010 U.S. Census report, Ohio went from 18 congressional seats to 16, its congressional map yielding a 12-4 bi-partisan advantage for Republicans from Ohio in congress, 12 of the congressional seats now held by Republicans, and only four by Democrats, two of them Black, and three of them female.

Ohio's Democratic congresspersons from left:  U.S. Representatives
Marcia Kaptur (D-9) , Tim Ryan (D-13), Joyce Beatty (D-3) and Marcia L. Fudge (D-11)

The four Democratic congress persons from Ohio are Reps Marcia Fudge, whose 11th congressional district includes Cleveland, Marcy Kaptur of Toledo, the longest serving woman in Congress and whose 9th congressional district extends to Cleveland, Joyce Beatty of Columbus, and Rep Tim Ryan, a Youngstown area Democrat and presidential candidate.

Beatty and Fudge, a former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and prior national president of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc., are both Black, and are the only Blacks in congress from Ohio.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog with some 5 million views on Google Plus alone.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. 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.