Supreme Court sends back Ohio redistricting case

The Supreme Court on Friday sent an Ohio redistricting case back to the state’s top court, in light of a decision it delivered earlier this week on a similar case in North Carolina. 

Ohio Republicans had appealed to the nation’s highest court after several sets of congressional maps had been tossed out last cycle by the Ohio Supreme Court, though the officials didn’t have enough time to implement news ones.

Ohio Republicans had sought to have their case upheld by the Supreme Court, using the “independent state legislature theory,” which claims that state legislatures to have near-total control over how federal elections are handled and how congressional maps are drawn.

But the Supreme Court quashed a similar case Tuesday where Republicans in North Carolina used the theory as reason for readopting Republican-drawn congressional lines that had been struck down by the state Supreme Court ahead of the 2022 midterms.

The developments are noteworthy given North Carolina and Ohio are among some of the country’s last swing states — though they’ve trended more heavily Republican in recent election cycles — and a ruling in favor of the “independent state legislature theory” would have helped solidify the states as more solidly Republican.