A federal appeals court has sided with Ohio鈥檚 attorney general in his lawsuit to get US Census data earlier than expected to draw maps for Ohio's Congressional and state House and Senate districts. But the leader of the Ohio Senate says at this point, he鈥檚 not sure it will make a difference in drawing one set of new maps.
The US Census said data to build the new maps won鈥檛 be available till mid-August. Attorney General Dave Yost had sued to force the data to be released sooner.
Yost lost the first round and appealed. The appeals court鈥檚 ruled in his favor, saying the mapable data should be delivered by August 16 or sooner.
BREAKING: the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reverses the trial court鈥檚 dismissal of our Census lawsuit, and directs the court to expedite a merits hearing.
— Attorney General Dave Yost (@Yost4Ohio)
But Senate President Matt Huffman (R-Lima) said the lawsuit doesn鈥檛 really do anything to manage Ohio鈥檚 situation.
鈥淚鈥檓 not sure that it does anything to help us solve our problem. If it does, that鈥檚 great. I don鈥檛 know how," Huffman said. "We鈥檙e still kind of in the shape where we have a constitutional deadline of August 15.鈥�
Voters approved two on and that require maps to be finalized in September and more minority party buy-in. The amendments also mandate at least two public hearings for the Congressional map and at least three for the House and Senate maps.
Huffman has said he thinks the maps for the state House and Senate likely won鈥檛 get agreement from minority Democrats, so they鈥檒l likely be short-term four-year maps. But he thinks the longer timeline to draw the Congressional map, with one less district, will result in an agreement on a ten-year map.
Huffman had proposed a constitutional amendment to move those map-drawing deadlines, but dropped the plan after Democrats pushed back, saying they preferred to go through the Ohio Supreme Court.
