Baker & Hostetler Lawyer Fights ACLU Subpoena for Ohio Redistricting Docs

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Baker & Hostetler[/caption] A Baker & Hostetler lawyer is resisting a push by the American Civil Liberties Union to get access to documents related to his work with Ohio legislators during the 2011 redistricting cycle.The ACLU hit E. Mark Braden, of counsel at the firm, with two subpoenas this summer. They came as part of the Ohio A. Philip Randolph Institute’s lawsuit—filed in May and currently before a three-judge panel in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio in Cincinnati—challenging the state’s 2011 congressional map. The lawsuit argues that the map, drawn by Republicans who held the majority in the General Assembly, is an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander designed to favor the GOP.Braden, who is based in the firm’s Washington, D.C., office, advised those state lawmakers during the redistricting cycle that year. The ACLU is demanding production of a broad swath of documents from the election law veteran related to the post-2010 census redistricting. Braden’s lawyer, Katherine McKnight—a Baker & Hostetler partner also based in the firm’s Washington office—attempted to quash both subpoenas Tuesday. In a filing to the district court in Washington, D.C., she argued the documents the ACLU seeks are protected under attorney-client privilege. The requests, McKnight wrote, impose an “undue burden” on Braden. Braden “provided only legal, and no political or other non-privileged, advice,” McKnight said. “Mr. Braden's counsel is not an issue in this litigation and this privilege has not been waived.” McKnight added that the ACLU’s request for documents, including those that were “produced to any other person in connection with any redistricting litigation,” was “overbroad.” “Plaintiffs' requests do not include a timeframe limitation and Mr. Braden has worked on redistricting matters and litigation for over 38 years in at least a dozen states,” she wrote.Braden, according to his website, spent a decade working as chief counsel to the Republican National Committee before joining Baker & Hostetler. Before that, he also worked at the Ohio Elections Commission and the Secretary of State of Ohio.Responding to a request for comment, Theresa Lee, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, said, “The subpoena contains a time frame and specifies that it is seeking documents related to the Ohio congressional redistricting following the 2010 census. This congressional redistricting was done in secret and this subpoena seeks to bring the facts to light.”Ohio, a swing state in presidential elections, isn’t the only state to have been involved in legal fights over congressional districting lines this year. In January, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania struck down a congressional map drawn in 2011 as an unlawful gerrymander.The U.S. Supreme Court also considered two political gerrymandering cases this term—one focused on a Republican-drawn map in Wisconsin, the other on a Democratic-drawn map in Maryland—but the justices declined to rule on the merits in both cases.

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