Ohio Supreme Court Election

Since 2022, the composition of the Ohio Supreme Court has undergone a dramatic ideological shift that has led to numerous high-profile and deeply controversial rulings. Many of these decisions came after Ohio changed its method for electing judges from nonpartisan elections to partisan elections, where candidates appear on the ballot with a political party affiliation. Since that change in 2022, several moderate justices have left the court or lost their elections to hardline conservatives, shifting the court’s balance dramatically to the right. These rulings have restricted voter access, consumer rights, reproductive freedoms, and civil liberties; have been highly favorable towards large corporations and utility companies; and have been harshly punitive toward criminal defendants and people convicted of crimes. 

The Ohio Supreme Court has gutted voting rights and the state’s citizen initiative process since conservative Republican justices took control of the bench, undermining election integrity and limiting Ohioans’ ability to participate in the direct democratic process. In 2023, the Ohio Supreme Court dismissed numerous challenges to the legislative and congressional district maps the Republican-controlled legislature had drawn in 2021. Previously, in 2022, the court rejected five legislative district maps and two congressional district maps for being unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders, but following the moderate former chief justice’s mandatory retirement, which resulted in Gov. Mike DeWine (R) appointing hardline conservative Justice Joe Deters (R) to fill the vacancy, the court dismissed all challenges to the contested maps and allowed the heavily gerrymandered maps to remain in place for the 2024 election.  

The following year, organizers submitted a citizen initiative that would have eliminated Ohio’s redistricting commission, composed of members of the state’s executive branch and the leaders of its legislature, and replaced it with Ohio voters. Republicans again employed their strategy of describing the proposal in confusing and deceptive terms; the court allowed it. The strategy worked, and voters narrowly rejected the proposal, keeping the original redistricting commission in place. In 2025, in response to President Trump’s call for a mid-decade round of redistricting to adopt extreme partisan gerrymanders that would gain Republican seats in Washington, D.C., that commission redrew the maps to favor Republicans even more and adopted them in time for the 2026 election. 

Also in 2023, the court allowed a controversial legislative ballot proposal that would have raised the threshold for adopting citizen-initiated ballot proposals from 50% plus one vote to 60% to appear on a special election ballot in August. The legislatively referred proposal was a transparent effort to create a roadblock to a citizen-initiated proposal to enshrine reproductive rights in the Ohio Constitution. This time, voters rejected the proposal to raise the proposal passage threshold in August 2023. After the defeat, Ohio Republicans worked to mislead voters about the reproductive rights initiative, with Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) drafting ballot language that described the initiative in confusing, misleading, and inflammatory terms. Advocacy groups challenged the language, but the Ohio Supreme Court allowed the language to appear on ballots in November 2023. Despite Republicans’ efforts, Ohio voters adopted the proposal.  

Aside from gutting voting rights and direct democracy in Ohio, the state’s highest court has issued decisions that have dismantled consumer protections and endangered Ohio workers and families while allowing corporations to become even richer. The court has shown hostility toward workers, women, the LGBTQ+ community, and other groups that have traditionally supported progressive causes. The court terminated pandemic unemployment assistance for struggling Ohio families by allowing the governor to cut off federal supplemental pandemic aid. The court weakened worker protections by narrowing the conditions under which the families of workers who died on the job from chemical safety violations are eligible to receive their loved one’s death benefits. The court made pregnancy and childbirth more dangerous in Ohio by allowing the governor to enforce a so-called “heartbeat bill” within hours of the United States Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe  v. Wade and ruled that a diner injured by swallowing a chicken bone embedded in a piece of chicken the restaurant had advertised as a “boneless wing” could not recover damages because “boneless” is a “cooking style” rather than a guarantee that food does not contain bones. Additionally, the court heavily restricted consumers’ ability to bring class action claims against corporations by allowing a recently enacted legislation restricting class actions to be applied retroactively to a pending lawsuit. 

Put simply, the justices of the Ohio Supreme Court make decisions that impact the lives of every Ohioan. That’s why it’s so important that those justices possess the credentials, integrity, and principles befitting a seat on the state’s highest court. 

Ohio Supreme Court Justice Jennifer Brunner 

Ohio Supreme Court Justice Jennifer Brunner was born in Springfield, Ohio, and raised in Columbus, Ohio. She earned a B.A. in sociology and gerontology from Miami University in 1978 and a J.D. from Capital University Law School in 1982. After graduating from law school, Brunner worked in the Ohio secretary of state’s office as a deputy director and legislative counsel to the Ohio General Assembly during the administration of Sherrod Brown (D) from 1983 to 1987. From 1988 to 2000, she maintained a statewide law practice focusing on election law and campaign finance, where she litigated ballot propositions and represented Ohio politicians in disputes involving redistricting and false statements in campaign literature. She also served as a member of the Franklin County Board of Elections. 

In 2000, she was elected to an unexpired term on the Franklin County Common Pleas Court and reelected in 2002. She joined other Court of Common Pleas judges to create a separate drug court to reduce addiction-related recidivism in 2004. She resigned from the Franklin County Common Pleas Court in 2005 to run for Ohio secretary of state. She ran unopposed in the 2006 Democratic primary and defeated Republican nominee Greg Hartmann in the November 2006 general election. She was sworn in as the Ohio secretary of state in January 2007 and worked to improve election security and expand access to voting. In 2009, she announced she would not seek a second term as secretary of state and would instead run for U.S. Senate. She was defeated in the Democratic primary in May 2010. Following her defeat, she sat on several public commissions and boards, including the Ohio Cultural Facilities Commission, the Ohio Counselor, Social Worker, Marriage and Family Therapist Board, and the Central Ohio Transit Authority. She worked with USAID as a consultant on campaign finance, elections, and ballot issues in Serbia in 2012 and 2013. She served as an international election observer in Egypt for the 2014 Egyptian constitutional referendum. 

Brunner ran to fill the remainder of a partial term on the Ohio Tenth District Court of Appeals in 2014. She defeated an incumbent who was appointed by Gov. John Kasich (R) the previous year. She was elected unopposed to a full term on the court in 2016. In 2019, she announced she would challenge incumbent Justice Judith French for a seat on the Ohio Supreme Court in 2020. She won the general election and was sworn in to the court in January 2021. Later that year, she announced she would run for the vacant Chief Justice seat in 2022. She was defeated by fellow associate Justice Sharon Kennedy in the 2022 general election. In 2023, she filed a federal lawsuit against state officials. The suit is challenging a 2022 state law that requires judicial candidates to run in partisan elections, arguing that the requirement violates free speech and equal protection rights under the U.S. Constitution. The case is ongoing in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. Brunner is running as a Democrat for a second full term on the court in 2026. 

Ohio Court of Appeals Judge Marilyn Zayas  

Marilyn Zayas is a judge on Hamilton County’s First District Court of Appeals. She was born in 1964 in New York City’s East Harlem neighborhood to parents who immigrated from Puerto Rico. Her father worked in a printing shop, and her mother was a seamstress in a garment factory. She earned a B.S. in computer science from City College of the City University of New York. She moved to Ohio in 1988 to accept a position at Procter & Gamble, where she worked as an IT manager from 1988 to 1994. She earned a J.D. from the University of Cincinnati College of Law in 1997. 

After graduating from law school, Zayas practiced law in a variety of areas in both state and federal courts. In 2001, she founded her own private practice, MZD Law, where she practiced business and family immigration law, labor and employment law, intellectual property, criminal law, and juvenile law. She also served as an adjunct professor at the University of Cincinnati College of Law. 

In 2016, Zayas won a partial-term election to Ohio’s First District Court of Appeals, becoming the first person of Hispanic heritage elected to an appellate court in Ohio. She was re-elected to a full term in 2018. She has sat temporarily on the Ohio Supreme Court by appointment of the chief justice, as well as on the Second, Sixth, Eighth, and Tenth District Courts of Appeal. As a court of appeals judge, she created the Educating Tomorrow’s Leaders program, which lets high school and university students learn about courts and interact with judges and attorneys. In 2025, she announced that she would run as a Democrat against incumbent Justice Dan Hawkins (R) to fill the remainder of Hawkins’s partial term on the Ohio Supreme Court in 2026. If elected, she would be the first Hispanic person to serve on the Ohio Supreme Court. 

Important Decisions by Justice Brunner and Judge Zayas 

Justice Brunner and Judge Zayas have each authored several important opinions since joining their respective courts.  

In State v. Crawford (2026), Zayas wrote an opinion for a three-judge panel that reversed a trial court decision to deny a defendant’s motion to dismiss soliciting charges, holding that a state law that prohibits standing on a highway for the purpose of soliciting contributions from vehicle occupants violates the First Amendment as a content-based restriction on protected speech. 

In State v. Brown (2026), Zayas wrote an opinion for a three-judge panel that upheld a trial court’s dismissal of charges against a defendant who argued that the state violated his right to a speedy trial by failing to try him within 90 days after it repeatedly delayed furnishing his lawyers with the recording of a 911 call as part of the discovery process. 

In State v. Johnson (2026), Zayas wrote an opinion for a three-judge panel that upheld a trial court’s decision to deny a defendant’s motion to dismiss firearm charges because they violated his Second Amendment rights, affirming the trial court’s determination that the defendant was a dangerous former felon and the Second Amendment permits the disarming of dangerous individuals. 

In State v. Brown (2021), Zayas wrote an opinion for a three-judge panel that upheld a trial court’s decision to suppress evidence recovered after the search of a defendant’s vehicle because the officer lacked a reasonable suspicion that the defendant was engaged in drug trafficking to justify the stop of the defendant’s vehicle. 

In Jones v. Kent City School District Board of Education (2024), Brunner wrote the majority opinion for the court when it ruled that a school board wrongly terminated a veteran teacher by failing to comply with mandatory state teacher evaluation procedures and ordered the school district to restore the teacher’s employment with full back pay, holding that state statutory evaluation minimums supersede collective bargaining agreements. 

In State v. Haynes (2022), Brunner wrote the court’s majority opinion when it ruled that upon a defendant’s request, the state has an obligation to provide defendants with a bill of particulars outlining the state’s theory of when and how the defendant’s alleged actions constituted alleged criminal activity, holding that defendants have a state constitutional right to know the nature and cause of the state’s accusations against them. 

In In re: Application of Icebreaker Windpower, Inc. (2022), Brunner wrote the court’s majority opinion when it affirmed the decision of the Ohio Power Siting Board to issue a permit to build a wind farm in Lake Erie after the decision was challenged by residents who alleged the project did not serve the public interest. 

In State v. Brooks (2022), Brunner wrote the majority opinion when the court ruled that a 2019 state law that shifted the burden of proof in criminal cases where defendants have asserted self-defense from defendants to prosecutors applies to all trials held after the law took effect, regardless of when the alleged offenses occurred. 

Justice Dan Hawkins 

Justice Daniel R. Hawkins is a Republican who was elected to the Ohio Supreme Court in November 2024. He was previously a judge of the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas and worked in the Franklin County Prosecutor’s office for 13 years. He has campaigned heavily against “judicial activism” but has himself been accused of judicial activism due to his strict conservative legal philosophy. He ran to fill the remainder of a partial term in 2024 and is running in 2026 for a full term.  

Judge Colleen O’Donnell 

Colleen O’Donnell was a judge of the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas Court from 2013 to 2023 and worked as a U.S. immigration judge in 2023. She has touted her harsh treatment of the people who appeared before her in her immigration court room, bragging that she routinely ordered the deportations of undocumented migrants and never once granted an asylum case that was brought before her. She is the daughter of retired Ohio Supreme Court Justice Terrence O’Donnell.

Justice Hawkins and former Judge O’Donnell are backed by extremists who want to further the MAGA takeover of Ohio’s government. They will continue the court’s track record of protecting billionaires and corporations posting record profits while making life more expensive for Ohioans. They cannot be trusted to put Ohio workers and families before corporations, billionaires, and MAGA extremists.  

The Ohio Supreme Court is the last word for millions of Ohioans, including workers, consumers, women, students, people with disabilities and health concerns, and the most vulnerable among us. Justice Jennifer Brunner and Judge Marilyn Zayas will protect and defend every Ohioan’s rights.  

AFJ Action Campaign recommends that Michigan voters keep Justice Jennifer Brunner and elect Judge Marilyn Zayas for the two seats on the Ohio Supreme Court on November 3.