A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by three African-American Youngstown residents seeking to invalidate the congressional district map for supposedly disenfranchising black voters in the Mahoning Valley.

U.S. District Court Judge John R. Adams ruled Thursday in favor of the Ohio Redistricting Commission determining the three Youngstown residents claims are “obviously without merit.”

The three contended the commission’s drawing of the 6th Congressional District, which has Mahoning as its most-populous county, and any district that touches it violated the federal Voting Rights Act and the U.S. Constitution’s 1st, 14th and 15th Amendments.

Adams accepted a Sept. 12 “report and recommendation” from federal magistrate Amanda M. Knapp to dismiss the lawsuit because the “plaintiffs have failed to state a claim for relief.”

The Youngstown residents, who filed the lawsuit April 15, 2022, asked the court to grant a temporary restraining order, to get a preliminary injunction and class-action certification and to appoint a special master to control the Ohio redistricting process as well as the creation of a three-member panel for the case.

All requests were rejected by Adams.

The lawsuit from the three Youngstown residents stated the congressional redistricting plan used last year “dilutes black voter strength by separating Mahoning and Trumbull counties and by submerging Mahoning (County) black voters into a racially polarized voting district 165 miles long comprised of 10 counties, which results in the political processes leading to election of representatives of choice not being equally open to plaintiffs.”

The group proposed a congressional district of Mahoning and Trumbull counties along with “more racially diverse adjacent Stark, Summit or Cuyahoga counties.”

The plaintiffs were the Rev. Kenneth L. Simon, senior pastor of New Bethel Baptist Church in Youngstown and chairman of the Community Mobilization Committee; Helen Youngblood, a community activist and former labor leader who is chairwoman of the Mahoning Valley 1619 Project; and the Rev. Lewis W. Macklin II, lead pastor of Holy Trinity Missionary Baptist Church.

After Knapp’s Sept. 12 report, Adams gave the plaintiffs, represented by attorney Percy Squire, the opportunity to file an objection.

Squire’s objection, filed Sept. 27, consisted of 10 numbered paragraphs that Adams called “at best, conclusory statements alleging various errors in the” report.

Adams added: “The filing of vague, general or conclusory objections does not meet the requirement of specific objections and is tantamount to a complete failure to object.”

In a Tuesday response to Squire’s objection, Julie M. Pfeiffer, an assistant Ohio attorney general representing the commission, wrote that it was “frivolous” and “meritless and should be overruled.”

She added that the “objections do nothing more than rehash their prior failed arguments. The magistrate’s conclusions are correct and should be adopted in full.”

The Voting Rights Act, approved in 1965, prohibits voting practices that discriminate on the basis of race, color or language.

The 14th Amendment grants equal civil and legal rights to African Americans to include them under the phrase “all persons born or naturalized in the United States” while the 15th Amendment states citizens’ right to vote shall not be denied for race or color. Both were ratified shortly after the end of the Civil War.

Squire didn’t explain the 1st Amendment violation. That amendment protects free speech, the press, religion and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

The redistricting commission approved a congressional map March 2, 2022, that was ruled unconstitutional by the Ohio Supreme Court on July 19, 2022, more than two months after primaries were held using the new district lines.

The maps were supposed to be in place for just the 2022 election as the Ohio Supreme Court was to hear two cases from groups challenging them. But the groups dropped the cases and the court dismissed them Sept. 7 leaving the map in place for the 2024 election.

The map gave Republicans a 10-3 advantage with two tossup seats that slightly lean Democratic. In the 2022 election, Republicans won 10 seats and Democrats captured five.