Thread by @DavidPepper

🚨 🚨 THREAD: excerpts from today’s opinion:

Senate President Huffman and Speaker Cupp “instructed” the mapmakers “to comply with certain provisions of the Constitution, but they did not instruct the map drawers to comply with Article XI, Section 6.”

1/

A map drawer testified that “President Huffman told him not to focus on it.”

They argued to the court they did not need to follow that section.

2/

“We reject the notion that Ohio voters rallied so strongly behind an anti-gerrymandering amendment to the Ohio Constitution yet believed at the time that the amendment was toothless.”

3/

“Petitioners have shown beyond a reasonable doubt that the commission did not attempt to draw a district plan that meets the standard articulated in Art XI, Section 6(B)….The commission did not demonstrate a correct understanding of what was required in drawing the maps.”

4/

Huffman and Cupp’s “approach looks not to votes cast but statewide offices won, which is a measure that does not comport with Article XI, Section 6(b).”

And, they “never asked the principal map drawers…to try to comply with Section 6.”

5/

The Constitution requires “ALL members of the commission to attempt to draw a plan” that reflects statewide voting preferences. Not just the Democratic members 🔥

6/

“[T]he adopted plan’s partisan skew cannot be explained solely by nondiscriminatory factors…..[It] significantly discriminates against Democratic voters to the advantage of Republican voters.”

7/

“The fact that the adopted plan is an outlier among 5,000 simulated plans is strong evidence that the plan’s result was by design.”

8/

A new map must be drawn in 10 days.

One other thing: this opinion is bipartisan!!!

END