Thread by @DavidPepper

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An American state of almost 12 million people—Ohio—is weeks away from holding an election for Congress on a map of districts that its own (bipartisan) court has ruled are unconstitutional.

No court has ruled otherwise.

But that election is about to begin, because…

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…those overseeing the map-drawing process chose to violate the law & court orders for so long, they forced that illegal map onto the ballot

There is no minimizing this. There is no sugarcoating this. There is no “both sidesing” this.

It is utterly lawless. And illegitimate

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But it gets WORSE.

The same body lawlessly rigging that map also changed the rules of how Ohio elects Supreme Court justices for THIS year, to favor their candidates. And their clear goal is to ignore the current court’s orders for long enough, that their new election rule…

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…gets them a partisan and favorable court, that will retroactively undo the rulings they are violating.

And national Republicans are sending millions in Ohio to get that done.

THE entire sequence is a blatant attack on the rule of law you’d expect to see in another country…

…not here. There is no sugarcoating it. There is no normalizing it. There is no “both sidesing” it.

But it gets WORSE.

If their plan succeeds, the swing justice who would reverse the current court’s rulings and uphold their illegal maps is the son of the Governor..

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…who voted for the illegal map and a defendant in the case. Even though required by judicial ethics rules to recuse, this son:justice refuses, and rules in dad’s favor every time. Again, he will be the swing vote holding up the maps 4-3 if they win.

That too is an attack on…

…the rule of law. It can not be normalized. It should not be minimized. There is no both sides.

But it gets WORSE.

In case you think this is an Ohio-issue, think again.

The race for the House majority will be close. Maybe a few seats. The gerrymandered Ohio map is…

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…basically taking a map that the Ohio Constitution mandated should have 6-7 Dem seats and will likely cap that number at 3-4. (If they win their court races, likely 2-3 in ‘24 because they will draw a WORSE map and the new court will uphold it).

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Now compare all this illegality and lawbreaking to New York State, where court orders there were followed (because that’s how it’s supposed to work in a country with the rule of law). The lawful response to the court ruling in NY cost the Dems some seats.

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So when you add just those two states up—where Ohio Republicans simply broke the law and forced on Ohio voters an illegal map, and NY followed the law—you could very well be talking about the difference between a Republican versus Democratic majority in the US House.

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So an outcome that could forever change our nation because of how extreme the House GOP has become could all be to brute-force lawbreaking and oath-breaking by the Ohio GOP.

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And again, there is no sugarcoating that.

There is no normalizing that.

There is no both side-sing that.

Lawlessness should not be the determining factor in who runs our country at any level.

END

One final thing: if you’re reading this and disturbed, and you want to do something about it, number one priority is to elect @vote4JudgeZayas @Jamison4Justice and @JenniferBrunner to the Ohio Supreme Court. They would be in the best position to stop this.

PLEASE give if…

…you can:

Jamison: secure.actblue.com/donate/pepper4…

Zayas: secure.actblue.com/donate/roevwad…

Brunner: secure.actblue.com/donate/brunner…