In one of the final acts in a 24-year political career, the Republican chief justice of the Ohio supreme court is defying her party and refusing to let them distort electoral districts to their advantage, a move that has some fellow Republicans calling for her impeachment.
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. Those decisions have prompted chatter among Republicans about impeaching O’Connor, 70, who will leave the court after nearly two decades at the end of this year because she has reached the mandatory retirement age for judges in Ohio.
