What Redistricting Looks Like In Every State

On Jan. 14, the Ohio Supreme Court invalidated the congressional map enacted by Ohio’s Republican legislature and governor in November. In a 4-3 decision, the court ruled that the map — which made 73 percent of the state’s districts Republican-leaning — violated the partisan-fairness requirement in the state constitution considering that the GOP “generally musters no more than 55% of the statewide popular vote,” in the words of Justice Michael Donnelly in the court’s opinion. “By any rational measure, that skewed result just does not add up.”

On March 2, Republicans on the Ohio Redistricting Commission approved a replacement map that is barely fairer than the map that was struck down. The new map creates 11 Republican-leaning seats, only two Democratic-leaning seats and only two highly competitive seats — the same breakdown as the invalidated map. And it has virtually the same Republican-friendly efficiency gap (R+16).

Because the map passed along party lines, it will only be valid for two election cycles, meaning Ohio will go through yet another redistricting process in 2025-26. The map is also being challenged in court, but the case will likely only matter for the 2024 election: The Ohio Supreme Court has set a timeline for the case that runs into the May 3 primary, suggesting it will not rule in time to affect the 2022 election.

Ohio adopted a brand-new redistricting process this year designed to produce fairer maps, but it did not work out the way reformers had hoped. After blowing past two deadlines to pass a new congressional map with bipartisan support, the Republican-controlled legislature ended up passing a heavily biased congressional map all on its own. That map, of course, was ultimately struck down, putting the ball back in the legislature’s court. But the legislature again failed to take action within the required 30 days, sending the process to the commission.