Embarrassingly, the federal courtroom majority (made up of two Trump appointees) insisted the commission wouldn’t run out the clock as a result of “we should presume that Ohio’s officers are public servants who nonetheless view partisan benefit as subordinate to the rule of regulation.”
After all, there is not any motive to suppose these two judges, Amul Thapar and Benjamin Beaton, will care within the slightest. The Ohio Supreme Courtroom would possibly, however its choices are restricted because the identical amendments to the state structure that prohibit partisan gerrymandering additionally forbid the courtroom from implementing its personal map.
Varied plaintiffs have proposed artistic workarounds to this downside, equivalent to asking the state courtroom to rule {that a} map created by unbiased consultants complies with the structure. That will give those self same plaintiffs a forceful argument earlier than the federal courtroom, which does not face the identical constraints, however up to now, the justices have declined to take such steps.
