https://www.limaohio.com/news/477942/gop-maps-hit-with-2nd-lawsuit-in-2-day

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio’s newly drawn legislative district maps were hit Friday with the second lawsuit in two days that alleges Republican gerrymandering that violated the state constitution.

The lawsuit, filed in the Ohio Supreme Court by the National Democratic Redistricting Committee’s legal arm on behalf of a group of Ohio voters, challenges maps of Ohio House and Ohio Senate districts passed last week along party lines by the GOP-dominated Ohio Redistricting Commission.

It is the group’s first lawsuit nationally of the redistricting cycle tied to the 2020 census, attorney Marc Elias told reporters in a briefing.

Elias said Friday’s litigation is complementary to a suit filed Thursday by the ACLU on behalf of the League of Women Voters, A. Philip Randolph Institute and individuals, raising some similar and some different constitutional violations.

The complaint goes further in challenging additional aspects of the map-drawing process, including draft maps being drawn behind closed doors, public hearings being held when maps weren’t yet available to react to, and a required deadline being missed.

NDRC Chairman Eric Holder, attorney general under former President Barack Obama, said the maps — estimated to produce 67% of the House districts and 69% of Senate districts to favor Republicans — aim to deliver unearned power to Republicans. The state’s partisan leanings are roughly 54% Republican, 46% Democratic.

“They have not earned that level of representation of Ohio voters,” Holder said. “In fact, over the past decade, even with maps that were painfully gerrymandered and aiding them, Ohio Republicans earned just over 54% of the vote statewide for state legislative offices.”

The litigation also quotes concerns raised publicly by three Republican statewide officeholders who sit on the redistricting commission, using the words of Gov. Mike DeWine, Secretary of State Frank LaRose and Auditor Keith Faber to help make the case for unconstitutionality.

Republican Senate President Matt Huffman, who led the Republican map-making effort, has defended the maps as fair and constitutionally compliant — criticizing Democrats and special interest groups for thwarting a bipartisan deal.

“First Barack Obama’s lawyer sued and now Hillary Clinton’s lawyer sued,” John Fortney, a spokesman for Huffman said Friday. “Two of the most partisan, far left, polarizing figures in politics want to lecture Ohio voters about fairness. The so called non-partisan voter groups finally showed how partisan and politically motivated they really are.”

The Ohio Supreme Court has original and exclusive jurisdiction in deciding the map challenges. Justices face some pressure to act quickly, should they decide to send the maps back to the drawing board. Candidates must register for 2022 elections on Feb. 2.

>>14666543

This one’s a few months old but it’s another one about Eric “Holder’s group”, the NDRC — redistricting. Formed in 2017

1/2

https://apnews.com/article/wi-state-wire-wisconsin-redistricting-government-and-politics-4ebf3c9e06a6c9217672efda7093803c

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin remains a priority state for a Democratic group focused on redistricting that is backed by former President Barack Obama, even though Republicans can’t draw and enact whatever maps they want like they did 10 years ago.

Eric Holder, Obama’s former attorney general who has run the National Democratic Redistricting Committee since it was created in 2017, said in an interview Wednesday that he was “cautiously optimistic” that fair maps could be drawn in Wisconsin this year. But he said those maps would likely come from the result of lawsuits, not any compromise between the Republican-led Legislature and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.

“The outlook for the possibility of fair maps is better in Wisconsin than it is in Texas,” Holder said. “But Wisconsin is still among the most gerrymandered, or (is) the most gerrymandered, state in the country. And that’s why it remains a state of primary interest.”

Wisconsin Republicans have insisted they will fairly redraw voting districts used for U.S. House and state legislative elections based on the latest U.S. census population figures that states will receive in August and September.

Mark Jefferson, executive director of the Wisconsin Republican Party, said third party groups like the one Holder leads have a long history of doing “dirty work for the Democrats” on redistricting in the state.

“Eric Holder doesn’t want fair maps,” Jefferson said. “He wants maps that are tilted to Democrats’ favor.”

As the once-a-decade redistricting conflicts heat up in Wisconsin and across the country, Republicans and Democrats are wrestling with how far to press their advantages in a fight as consequential as any election. For Republicans, that means building on the success of 10 years ago — even as some population and political trends work against them. For Democrats, it’s a test of their commitment to the changes they’ve long argued are needed to create a level playing field.

Any maps passed by the Wisconsin Legislature would need Evers’ signature. In the likely event of a veto, lawsuits from groups like the one Holder leads are expected, which would put a court in position to approve the maps. Holder’s group has already filed lawsuits in Minnesota, Louisiana and Pennsylvania asking the courts to begin preparing to redraw maps, in the likely event that their legislature and governor can’t agree on a plan.

Other priority states for the group this year are Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas.

>>14666595

2/2

The NDRC has raised tens of millions of dollars to help elect Democrats and fight Republicans over redistricting over the past four years. It has been active in Wisconsin on a variety of fronts, including spending money on political campaigns and suing Walker in 2018 when he didn’t call special elections for a pair of legislative vacancies.

Wisconsin Democrats, with the help of the NDRC, achieved two of their biggest goals ahead of redistricting this year: winning the governor’s office in 2018 and ensuring Republicans didn’t secure veto-proof majorities in the Legislature in 2020. With Evers able to veto any maps the Republican Legislature passes, Democrats hope for either a compromise that would avoid GOP gerrymandering or more balanced maps approved by courts.

Because Evers can veto the GOP-drawn maps, Wisconsin has not been in the same redistricting spotlight as states where one party controls the entire process. Southern states from Texas to North Carolina are expected to be the premier battlegrounds during this round of redistricting.

In Wisconsin, Evers created a redistricting commission that held hearings across the state and is preparing to release its own map of legislative districts. He also called for nonpartisan redistricting in his state budget, but Republicans have already killed that idea. The Legislature is also not required to consider the maps created by Evers’ commission, which he has touted as nonpartisan but which Republicans have said is designed to help Democrats.

In New York, Democrats are having second thoughts about the nonpartisan redistricting commission there and are looking to make it easier to overrule it so they can draw more favorable district boundaries.

Holder, who supports nonpartisan redistricting commissions and testified at the first meeting of the one in Wisconsin, said Wednesday that he supports following whatever the commission recommends in New York.

Democrats scored a victory last week when the Wisconsin Supreme Court unanimously rejected a Republican-led effort to fast track state lawsuits over redistricting. And a district court judge last month ruled that Republican lawmakers cannot hire attorneys at taxpayers’ expense before any redistricting lawsuits have been filed.