WASHINGTON, May 24 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday blocked lower court rulings that had ordered Republican legislators in Michigan and Ohio to redraw U.S. congressional maps ahead of the 2020 elections after finding that the current districts were designed to illegally diminish the power of Democratic voters.

The justices granted requests from Republican lawmakers in both states to stay those decisions. The lower courts found that the electoral maps had been drawn to entrench the majority party in power, a practice known as partisan gerrymandering, in violation of the U.S. Constitution. </s> The U.S. Supreme Court has blocked lower court rulings that invalidated, as partisan gerrymanders, Ohio’s map for congressional districts and Michigan’s maps for congressional and state legislative districts.

The high court's orders put on hold efforts in both states to redraw their electoral maps ahead of the 2020 elections, a remedy ordered by the lower courts.

In the Ohio case, a three-judge panel ruled unanimously earlier this month that the district map draw up by the Republican-controlled legislature unconstitutionally discriminated against Democrats. "We are convinced by the evidence that this partisan gerrymander was intentional," the ruling said. </s> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday blocked lower court rulings that had ordered Republican legislators in Michigan and Ohio to redraw U.S. congressional maps ahead of the 2020 elections after finding that the current districts were designed to illegally diminish the power of Democratic voters.

The justices granted requests from Republican lawmakers in both states to stay those decisions. The lower courts found that the electoral maps had been drawn to entrench the majority party in power, a practice known as partisan gerrymandering, in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

While both disputes involve U.S. House of Representatives districts in the two states, the Michigan case also challenges districts in the state legislature as well.

The decisions in Michigan and Ohio that were put on hold by the justices were the latest rulings by federal courts determining that electoral maps designed by a state’s majority party unconstitutionally undermined the rights of voters who tend to support the other party.

Two other gerrymandering challenges are already pending at the Supreme Court, with rulings due by the end of June. In one case, Republican legislators in North Carolina are accused of rigging congressional maps to boost their party’s chances in that state. In the other case, Democratic lawmakers in Maryland face similar allegations over one U.S. House district. </s> The Supreme Court blocked on Friday lower court rulings ordering Republican legislators in Michigan and Ohio to redraw congressional maps ahead of the 2020 elections, in a blow dealt to Democrats that had argued that the electoral districts were intended to unlawfully diminish their political clout.

Reuters reports that the justices granted requests from Republican lawmakers to put those decisions on hold, but the justices did not provide explanations for their orders.

The lower courts had found that the electoral maps in both states had been drawn to entrench Republicans in power by manipulating boundaries in a way that reduced the voting clout of Democrats, what is called gerrymandering, in violation of the Constitution.

There are two other cases currently under review by the Supreme Court concerning gerrymandering, one from North Carolina and the other from Maryland. </s> WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday blocked rulings from federal courts in Ohio and Michigan that had struck down voting maps in those states as unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders. Both courts had found that Republican legislators had violated the Constitution by drawing voting districts to hurt the electoral chances of Democratic candidates.

The Supreme Court’s move was expected. The justices will soon decide, in a second pair of cases, whether voting maps can ever be so warped by politics as to cross a constitutional line. The answer to that question, in pending cases from Maryland and North Carolina, will very likely affect the cases from Ohio and Michigan.

Friday’s orders were brief, gave no reasons and did not indicate that any justice had dissented.

In the Ohio case, a three-judge panel of a Federal District Court found that Republican state legislators had drawn maps that allowed their party’s candidates to gain an outsize partisan advantage in elections. Ohio is a swing state in which presidential and statewide elections can be close. But the state’s congressional maps, in effect since 2012, have consistently yielded delegations of 12 Republicans and four Democrats.

The panel ordered new maps to be drawn for the 2020 election, a ruling that the Supreme Court has now put on hold. </s> The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday blocked lower court rulings that invalidated, as partisan gerrymanders, Ohio’s map for congressional districts and Michigan’s maps for congressional and state legislative districts.

The high court's orders put on hold efforts in both states to redraw their electoral maps ahead of the 2020 elections, a remedy ordered by the lower courts.

In the Ohio case, a three-judge panel ruled unanimously earlier this month that the district map drawn up by the Republican-controlled legislature unconstitutionally discriminated against Democrats. "We are convinced by the evidence that this partisan gerrymander was intentional," the ruling said.

The Michigan ruling in April had found that the votes of Democrats were unconstitutionally diluted.

Ohio lawmakers had been ordered to draw new districts by June 14, and Michigan lawmakers had been ordered to do so by August 1.

The justices did not rule on the merits of the cases in its Friday order. The Supreme Court is currently considering two other gerrymandering cases in North Carolina and Maryland. In March, the justices heard challenges to congressional redistricting plans that locked in an advantage for Republicans in North Carolina and that gave an extra seat to Democrats in Maryland.

Decisions in those cases are expected by late June. </s> The Supreme Court on Friday put on hold lower-court decisions that said Ohio and Michigan had to come up with new electoral maps because of unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering.

The decision was not surprising, because the justices are currently considering whether judges should even have a role in policing partisan gerrymandering. There were no noted dissents in the orders for either state.

The Supreme Court in March heard arguments in similar cases from North Carolina, where judges found that Republicans had manipulated congressional maps to their advantage, and from Maryland, where Democratic lawmakers redrew a district that resulted in a loss for a longtime Republican congressman.

While the Supreme Court regularly examines redistricting plans for signs of racial gerrymandering, it has never found a state’s plan so infected with partisan politics that it violates the rights of voters. The decision in the North Carolina and Maryland cases are expected before the end of June.

[Supreme Court again considers partisan gerrymandering, but voters are not waiting]

With the decisions from Ohio and Michigan, federal courts in five states have struck down maps as partisan gerrymanders. The courts in the Ohio and Michigan decisions ordered the states to come up with new maps that could be used in the 2020 elections.

But lawyers for the states argued that would be foolhardy until the Supreme Court has ruled. Lawyers for Ohio told the court that the legislature there should not have to “waste its time on a difficult legislative activity likely to prove entirely unnecessary.”

Even if the court’s decision is that federal courts have a role in monitoring partisan gerrymandering, Ohio argued in its request to the court, that “will require the district court to return to the drawing board on the question of liability, make new findings as necessary, and apply what this court declares to be the law to this case in the first instance.”

Michigan sounded a similar theme. “Time and again, this court has granted stays when other district courts have invoked partisan gerrymandering to force legislatures to enact new maps,” wrote lawyers for the Michigan Senate. “Michigan, no less than Wisconsin or North Carolina, deserves to avoid judicially inflicted political upheaval based on a theory this court has repeatedly declined to adopt.”

Often, lower courts will hesitate while the Supreme Court is considering an issue. But the unanimous panel that found that some of Michigan’s legislative and congressional maps were unconstitutional seemed anxious to send a message to the high court.

“Judges — and justices — must act in accordance with their obligation to vindicate the ­constitutional rights of those harmed by partisan gerrymandering,” Judge Eric L. Clay of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit wrote in the Michigan case.

The Ohio court took a similar approach in its decision.

“We join the other federal courts that have held partisan gerrymandering unconstitutional and developed substantially similar standards for adjudicating such claims,” the panel said in its unanimous ruling. </s> The Supreme Court agreed Friday to put on hold partisan gerrymandering cases from Ohio and Michigan, temporarily sparing Republican lawmakers in those states of the need to redraw congressional districts by the summer.

The high court’s emergency order came as no surprise. The justices are weighing partisan gerrymandering cases from North Carolina and Maryland, and are expected to hand down rulings by the end of June. At issue is whether state lawmakers violate the Constitution if they drew an electoral map to entrench their party in power.

That ruling will determine what happens in Ohio and Michigan as well.

Federal judges in Ohio and Michigan had ordered the two states to begin immediate work on redrawing their electoral maps, but the Supreme Court suspended those rulings in a pair of brief orders. There were no dissents from the justices.

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The court’s conservatives, led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., have been skeptical of authorizing judges to decide whether politics played too much of a role in drawing election districts.

But three-judge panels in Ohio and in Michigan chose to address the issue head on this spring, and they struck down the GOP maps in those states on the grounds they were drawn to ensure Republicans would win a large majority of the seats.

In Ohio, Republicans regularly won 12 of the state’s 16 congressional seats, even when the voters were evenly divided between the parties.

In a May 3 ruling, the judges in the Ohio case issued a 301-page opinion and said Republican leaders “manipulated district lines in an attempt to control electoral outcomes.” In doing so, the GOP leaders violated the 1st Amendment by discriminating against voters based on their political views, the ruling said. A separate three-judge panel said the same about Michigan’s election map, which helped the GOP win nine of 14 seats.

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The skewed maps worked as planned last year in Ohio and North Carolina, despite a Democratic wave in the November elections. None of the congressional seats switched parties in those two states, although one North Carolina race has yet to be resolved.

To the surprise of the lawyers representing Ohio and Michigan, the judges refused to put their rulings on hold pending the outcome of the case in the high court. Ohio lawmakers were given a deadline of June 14, and Michigan’s were told they must have a new map by August.

The lawyers for both states filed emergency appeals with the Supreme Court on May 10, urging the justices to put their cases on hold pending the rulings on partisan gerrymandering.

More stories from David G. Savage » </s> The Supreme Court on Friday set aside two lower court rulings tossing out congressional maps in Michigan and Ohio, putting the process of redrawing district lines on hold while it prepares to rule on whether or not partisan gerrymandering is constitutional.

Republicans in both Midwestern states had appealed lower-court rulings that their congressional maps had been drawn so egregiously to favor the GOP that they violated the constitutional rights of voters. The Supreme Court already heard arguments in partisan gerrymandering cases from Maryland and North Carolina — and the high court is expected to render a decision next month that could decide what happens in Michigan and Ohio as well.

In both Michigan and Ohio, Republicans drew voting maps after the 2010 census and largely achieved their goal of locking in the gains they had made in the 2010 elections. But the lower courts had ruled that they had violated the 1st and 14th Amendment rights of voters by drawing districts to achieve certain political outcomes.

Despite its history as a swing state, Republicans currently hold 13 of the 18 congressional seats in Ohio. In Michigan, Democrats now hold seven of the state’s 14 seats, after flipping two Republican-held seats in the 2018 midterm elections.

The twin orders on Friday afternoon included no dissents, though a majority is required for the justices to grant a stay of a lower-court ruling. GOP-led legislatures in both states had anticipated the Supreme Court action and had made few moves toward redrawing their congressional maps thus far.

The high court heard partisan gerrymandering cases in its previous term as well, in 2017 and 2018. But a year ago, the court issued a limited ruling that largely left the issue undecided and opened the door for lower courts to enforce limits on partisan gerrymandering. Since then, however, Justice Anthony Kennedy retired and was replaced by Brett Kavanaugh, a conservative who doesn’t have a record on the issue thus far.
The U.S. Supreme Court temporarily blocks the redrawing of Ohio and Michigan electoral maps while it prepares to rule on whether or not partisan gerrymandering is constitutional. Lower federal courts ordered Michigan and Ohio electoral maps to be redrawn before the 2020 United States presidential election.