Tuesday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling on a North Carolina case should put to rest Ohio Republicans’ challenge of the court ruling that their proposed congressional maps were unconstitutionally gerrymandered.

“The U.S. Supreme Court’s not going to grant a hearing now on the existing Ohio request,” Ohio State UNiversity law professor Steve Huefner told WSYX. “They’re just going to dismiss that or deny it now.”

For those who want fair, constitutional maps drawn in the state, it should feel like a victory. But it is a hollow one.

“Today’s decision from the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirms what we already knew,” Ohio House Democratic leader Allison Russo, Upper Arlington, told WSYX.

“Extreme and gerrymandered state legislatures don’t have unlimited power in our democracy.”

They shouldn’t, anyway. But the challenged ruling came from a state Supreme Court that included then-Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, who joined the three Democrats on the court to rule against what GOP lawmakers and the Ohio Redistricting Commission KNEW were unfair, unconstitutional, gerrymandered maps.

Though the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling rejected the idea that legislators have the authority to draw new congressional maps, not subject to state courts’ review, the point may be moot in Ohio. With O’Connor gone due to “aging off the court,”

and the remaining four Republicans on the court still including Justice R. Patrick DeWine (his father, Gov. Mike DeWine, is part of the Redistricting Commission), lawmakers are likely to continue rubbing in Ohioans’ faces that fair representation is less important to them than gaming the system.

Voters across the Buckeye State — no matter how their districts are drawn — should let legislators and members of the commission know that behavior won’t go without consequences.