2024 election will shape the future of the Ohio Supreme Court as it faces some critical issues

The following article was originally published in the Ohio Capital Journal and published on News5Cleveland.com under a content-sharing agreement.

The Ohio Supreme Court could see significant changes if Republicans on the ballot take two seats in November currently held by incumbent Democrats. Meanwhile, two Democrats are facing off in the primary Tuesday for the nomination to run for a third seat up this year.

The 2024 election holds not only potential changes to congressional representation and seats in the Statehouse, but also the bench of the state’s highest court, which decides the legality and constitutionality of state legislation and other issues affecting the entire state.

In 2024, three Ohio Supreme Court seats will be up for election in November. Incumbent Democratic Justice Michael P. Donnelly is being challenged by Republican Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas Judge Megan Shanahan. Incumbent Democratic Justice Melody Stewart is being challenged by incumbent Republican Justice Joseph Deters, who declined to run for his current seat in favor of challenging Stewart.

In a third race — for the seat Deters currently holds — Republican Franklin County Court of Common Pleas Judge Dan Hawkins will face one of two Democrats running for the nomination in the primary tomorrow, Tuesday, March 19: 10th District Court of Appeals Judge Terri Jamison or Eighth District Court of Appeals Judge Lisa Forbes.

The Ohio Supreme Court has been in the spotlight for a number of issues in the last few years, starting with multiple rulings as the state’s redistricting commission went back and forth on Statehouse and congressional voting district maps.

While a majority of the court was consistent in the last two years of decisions, rejecting Statehouse maps five times and congressional maps twice, most recently, bipartisan agreement by members of the Ohio Redistricting Commission drove the conservative justices on the court to keep Statehouse maps adopted in September 2023 after anti-gerrymandering groups sued claiming undue partisan lean.

The biggest change from the previous redistricting decisions was the departure of former Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, who left the court because of age limits. O’Connor, a Republican, acted as the swing vote in past redistricting decisions, siding with Democratic justices who agreed that the maps unduly favored the Republican Party in a way that didn’t match voting trends of the last 10 years.

O’Connor has now moved on to support reform in the redistricting process as part of a ballot initiative currently in the signature-collecting process to get to the Ohio ballot.

The court was also called upon to rule on issues related to the six-week abortion ban, a piece of legislation that’s been in court almost since its enactment. Most recently, the court ruled against putting the six-week ban back in place while a Hamilton County common pleas court ultimately rules on whether the law is constitutional.

In deciding that the ban would not be put back in place, the bipartisan majority of the court said the appeal would be dismissed because of “a change in law,” likely the newest constitutional amendment in the state that legalizes abortion rights and other reproductive services.

Justice Deters recused himself from the abortion ban case due to his previous position as Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney. He was listed in the lawsuit because of his capacity as prosecutor.

But Deters was one of the Republican justices who voted to keep the Statehouse redistricting maps in place, signing on to Republican Chief Justice Sharon Kennedy’s opinion that the bipartisan agreement “is a changed circumstance that makes it appropriate to relinquish our continuing jurisdiction over these cases.”

Deters also previously served as Ohio Treasurer but resigned from office in 2004 amid a pay-to-play scandal where his former chief of staff, Matt Borges, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges related to steering state business to Deters campaign donors. Deters was appointed to the state supreme court by Gov. Mike DeWine in 2023 after Kennedy moved up to the chief justice’s chair. Also last year, Borges was sentenced to five years in federal prison after being convicted on racketeering charges related to Ohio’s House Bill 6 utility bailout and bribery scandal.

Now Deters wants to replace fellow Justice Stewart on the Ohio Supreme Court.

Deters has faced criticism – not unlike the criticism fellow Justice Pat DeWine received when he ruled over redistricting cases involving his father, Gov. Mike DeWine – when he acted as a justice in a Hamilton County case, despite his previous recusals.

However, the justice said this was “consistent with Ohio’s Code of Judicial Conduct” and done as part of a plan he divulged to Chief Justice Kennedy, wherein he would not hear Hamilton County cases for one year. After the year, he said he planned to “recuse from those cases in which I participated personally and substantially or about which I expressed an opinion.”

Stewart has been on the court since 2018, previously serving on the Eighth District Court of Appeals and as assistant law director in Cleveland and East Cleveland as well as in academic roles at various Ohio law schools. Donnelly was also first elected in 2018 and previously served as a Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court judge.

In the Democratic primary for the seat currently held by Deters, Eighth District Court appellate judge Forbes is a former private litigator who was elected to her current position in 2020 and is endorsed by the Ohio Democratic Party. The 10th District Court’s Jamison is a former public defender and Franklin County Court of Common Pleas judge who previously launched an unsuccessful challenge against Ohio Supreme Court Justice Pat Fischer in 2022.