Platner points to Ohio GOP defying courts in response to Virginia redistricting ruling

Graham Platner, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Maine, pointed to past Republican defiance of court orders on redistricting as he reacted to the Virginia Supreme Court striking down the commonwealth’s new congressional map Friday.

“I’m old enough to remember when Republicans in Ohio just ignored court rulings repeatedly and did it anyway,” Platner wrote on the social platform X.

Platner was alluding to a legal battle that played out in Ohio ahead of the 2022 election in which the state Supreme Court repeatedly ruled that GOP-backed legislative maps were unconstitutional, but elections were ultimately held on them anyway.

The standoff began in September 2021 when Ohio lawmakers approved a new set of congressional lines that were quickly challenged as an unconstitutional gerrymander.  

The Ohio Supreme Court struck down the map in January of the following year, and legislators adopted a second version that was also invalidated.

The court rejected several successive sets of maps, including in a March........

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