Maryland Democrats Move to Change How Congressional Maps Are Drawn

Maryland lawmakers opened a special session on Aug. 3 to begin changing the state constitution so it no longer sets rules for how the state’s congressional districts are drawn—a question that would go to Maryland voters on the Nov. 3 ballot.

To reach the ballot, the amendment needs a three-fifths vote in both the House of Delegates and the state Senate. Democrats hold more than enough seats in each chamber. “I believe we wouldn’t be here if we didn’t think that we had the votes to move forward,” Senate President Bill Ferguson, a Democrat, said at a news conference before the session opened.

Maryland’s constitution requires that districts be compact, connected, and drawn with regard for natural boundaries and county and city lines. Whether those rules apply to congressional districts—or only to seats in the General Assembly—is the question behind the whole fight, and it traces back to a single court ruling.

In late 2021, Democratic lawmakers passed a congressional map that stretched the 1st District—the seat held by Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), the state’s only Republican in Congress—across the Chesapeake Bay to pull in Democratic-leaning suburbs. 

In 2022, Maryland’s highest court struck down a Democrat-drawn 8–0 congressional map. Judge Lynne Battaglia ruled that it was a product of “extreme partisan gerrymandering” under state constitutional provisions requiring compact districts that respect natural and political boundaries. The state adopted a replacement map later that year.

That gap is the heart of the sponsors’ legal case: Ferguson told a committee hearing on Monday that the decision of a single circuit judge is “not a binding precedent,” and House Majority Leader David Moon, a Democrat, said voters themselves rejected a 1960s proposal to write congressional standards into the constitution—”the inconvenient part of the legislative history,” he said.

The amendment, House Bill 2100, would undo that ruling’s effect. It states that the constitution’s district standards apply only to General Assembly seats and that nothing in the constitution “provides applicable criteria for the boundaries of a congressional districting plan.” The ballot question voters would see says the rules for congressional districts would instead “be determined by applicable federal laws.”

The amendment would also let lawmakers send any court challenge to a congressional map directly to Maryland’s highest court. The bill states it is “not intended to provide new grounds to challenge” the current map, which gives Democrats seven of the state’s eight U.S. House seats.

“This is not about a new map,” Ferguson said. He said Maryland’s goal since Texas kicked off a redistricting race in 2025 has been “to protect our current 7 to 1 congressional map,” and that the Supreme Court’s ruling this spring in Louisiana v. Callais “eviscerated the very purpose and function of our Voting Rights Act.”

The April 29 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais held that congressional districts drawn primarily based on race were unconstitutional. States with Republican-majorities such as Tennessee quickly redrew their congressional maps, redrawing some districts that previously held minority populations that had elected Democrats.

The amendment is Democrats’ second attempt this year to answer Republican redistricting elsewhere—after their first attempt failed. 

In November, Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, convened the five-member Governor’s Redistricting Advisory Commission, chaired by U.S. Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), which held public hearings and in January voted 3–2 to recommend a new congressional map. 

The map would have moved Democratic voters into Harris’s 1st District, and analysts projected it would likely produce an all-Democratic delegation in the state. The House passed a bill enacting it in early February, but Ferguson—who served on the commission and opposed redrawing the map mid-decade—declined to bring it up in the Senate, warning courts could strike a new map under the 2022 precedent. He has said the Callais ruling in April changed his thinking.

Asked whether a new map would follow if voters approve the amendment, Ferguson said: “We are taking this one step at a time. We’ll see where we are after November.” He said the Baltimore-area 7th District “has to be protected no matter what,” and wrote on X that “no future map can weaken Baltimore’s power.”

The Maryland Republican Party said in a statement on X that the session’s purpose is “to fully legalize gerrymandering,” that “over one million Maryland voters will have their votes suppressed, and their voices in Congress silenced,” and that Republicans in the state capital of Annapolis “will fight this legislation every step of the way.”

A Contentious Special Session Opens

The fight started as soon as the session did. In the Senate, Minority Leader Stephen Hershey, a Republican, objected that the Senate’s version of the bill had been filed the same morning, against a chamber rule requiring bills to be filed four hours before a session begins. 

“This whole session seems to be about making the rules up as we go along,” Hershey said. Ferguson agreed to hold the Senate version back, telling members, “The House bill will be the operative bill moving forward.”

In the House, Speaker Joseline Peña-Melnyk, a Democrat, opened with a warning about conduct. “For 89 days, 23 hours, 5 minutes, last session, I gave respect to everyone,” she said. “I give respect and I expect respect.”

“I appreciate you lecturing us on respect,” replied Del. Jefferson Ghrist, a Republican. “The very fact that we’re here, Madam Speaker, is a real sign of disrespect for an entire region of our state.”

“I understand and I respect your view. And you do you,” Peña-Melnyk said.

Harris, whose district covers the Eastern Shore, responded to the special session in a statement to The Epoch Times on Monday. 

“Governor Wes Moore, in his quest for the presidency, feels that he has to match Gavin Newsom’s efforts to do hyperpartisan gerrymandering in his state,” Harris said.

“In a bizarre way, he would actually change the Maryland Constitution to have a double standard for drawing legislative districts—one strict standard for state legislative districts that requires them to be compact and respect geographic and jurisdictional boundaries, and no standard at all for congressional districts, allowing them to be drawn on a purely hyperpartisan basis—the only way they can attempt to eliminate the only Republican district left in the state.”

Moore called lawmakers back to Annapolis by proclamation, citing “coordinated efforts to weaken voting rights, dilute Black representation, and bend the rules of democracy for partisan gain.”

The bill’s public hearing began at noon before the two committees meeting jointly, with a large cohort of Marylanders allotted two minutes each to testify over the course of nearly five hours.

“House Bill 2100 and Senate Bill 2100 do not contain a congressional map,” Peña-Melnyk told the committees. “It does not draw a single district line.” She said the 2022 ruling misread 150 years of practice: “I spent hours on Saturday looking through it to see where did I miss it? How did she get it so wrong,” she asked, referring to Battaglia’s 2022 ruling. 

Sen. Bryan Simonaire, a Republican, noted that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that federal courts cannot hear partisan gerrymandering claims, leaving such challenges to the states, and asked whether a Marylander could still bring one in state court if the amendment passes. 

“Yes, but not under the Declaration of Rights,” Ferguson said. 

“This bill puts gerrymandering on steroids,” Simonaire replied. 

Ferguson countered that “this bill puts us in the exact same legal stature as we were 20 years ago, 25 years ago when the map was 4 to 4.”

Public witnesses split three ways. Supporters, including Willie Flowers of the Howard County NAACP, urged passage so voters can decide. 

A second group of Democratic-aligned organizations asked lawmakers to go further and attach the commission’s map to the ballot question. 

“We continue to believe that voters should see a map,” said Max Socol of Progressive Maryland. 

Kate Stein of the Montgomery County Women’s Democratic Club said members who testified before the commission expected legislators to vote on its map during the regular session: “This did not happen.”

Opponents—including Republican candidates, local officials, and a Forward Party representative—called the amendment a path to an 8–0 map. 

“The voters get to pick their leaders, not the other way around,” said Cecil County Executive Adam Streight. 

Some urged an independent redistricting commission instead; Peña-Melnyk said she has twice co-sponsored Republican bills to create one, but that “it is very difficult for us to unilaterally disarm ourselves when the rest of the country is not doing it.” 

At one point, Del. Melissa Wells, the House committee chair, excused an opposition witness who attributed the session to Ferguson’s political self-interest, saying the hearing would “not impugn the personal motives of anyone.”

Ferguson said the House bill should reach the Senate on the morning of Aug. 4. The session is scheduled to end Aug. 5—exactly 90 days before Election Day, the last day state election officials can post the amendment’s full text for the public, according to the bill’s official fiscal analysis.