Since January, Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor has served as the decisive vote on three separate occasions blocking Ohio Republicans from enacting proposed state legislative maps.
She also sided with Democrats to block an initial GOP proposal for congressional districts before going into effect in January.
A decade ago, she joined a dissent when the supreme court upheld the state legislative districts drawn by Republicans.
“I broke away from the mould in some people’s minds,” she would later say of that decision.
“Party affiliation should not – and people have to understand it should not – have anything to do with how a judge does their job.”.
She has backed criminal justice and bail reform, as other Ohio Republicans are pushing to make it harder for someone to be released on bond.
They were the only two members of the court who dissented in 2018 in the Toledo abortion clinic case. »