• Home
  • Opinion
  • Quizzes
  • Redistricting
  • Sections
  • About Us
  • Voting
  • Independent Voter News
  • Campaign Finance
  • Civic Ed
  • Directory
  • Election Dissection
  • Events
  • Fact Check
  • Glossary
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Redistricting>
  3. redistricting>

Will Maryland remap itself before Supreme Court acts?

Our Staff
March 04, 2019

The race is on to see whether a new, more politically competitive congressional map is adopted by the Maryland legislature before the Supreme Court decides if the current map is unconstitutional.

Last week, an independent commission created by GOP Gov. Larry Hogan unanimously embraced a plan to reconfigure two House districts encompassing some Washington suburbs. Even while leaving the rest of the state's sometimes incomprehensibly contorted boundaries intact, a cartographer (redistricting writer Stephen Wolf of the liberal Daily Kos politics website) figured out a visibly clean way to give Republicans a reasonable shot at electing a second House member from the state.


He refigured the 6th district to cover the entire panhandle and stretch as far southeast as Germantown, with most of the rest of Montgomery County south and east of Gaithersburg falling in a new 8th district far more compact and contiguous than as currently drawn.

After a period of public comment, Hogan is on course to send the map to Annapolis on March 22. The solidly Democratic General Assembly would then have until its annual session concludes April 8 to accept or reject it. But two weeks before that deadline, on March 26, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on a potential landmark case asking whether the existing map is an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander because its contours virtually guarantee that only one of the eight House members from the state is a Republican – even though the GOP reliably wins 40 percent of the vote statewide.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

That case is paired with a challenge to the map for North Carolina, where the GOP has held a 12-3 advantage in the congressional delegation all decade even though the total statewide vote for congressional candidates is split almost 50-50 each time. The court is being asked to decide if such maps can ever be drawn with such clear partisan intent as to become unconstitutional.

Related Articles Around the Web
  • Two members of Hogan's redistricting commission resign after ... ›
  • Maryland - The Atlas Of Redistricting | FiveThirtyEight ›
  • Commission picks new map for Maryland's gerrymandered 6th district ›
redistricting

Want to write
for The Fulcrum?

If you have something to say about ways to protect or repair our American democracy, we want to hear from you.

Submit
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Confirm that you are not a bot.
×
Follow

Support Democracy Journalism; Join The Fulcrum

The Fulcrum daily platform is where insiders and outsiders to politics are informed, meet, talk, and act to repair our democracy and make it live and work in our everyday lives. Now more than ever our democracy needs a trustworthy outlet

Contribute
Contributors

The conservative mind at 70

Michael Lucchese

Fulcrum Rewind: How to get along at Thanksgiving

Debilyn Molineaux
David L. Nevins

How reforming felony murder laws can reduce juvenile justice harms

Margaret Mikulski

What if neither party can govern?

John Opdycke

The case for the 4th, from a part-time American

Flora Roy

How to critique a Schedule F revival

C.Anne Long
latest News

Slovakia’s election deep fakes show how AI could be a danger to U.S. elections

David Levine
Louis Savoia
4h

How to change the world: Sam Daley-Harris has a formula

Jay Evense
4h

Podcast: America’s political orphans

Our Staff
4h

The Voter Choice Act reintroduced in the Senate

Our Staff
27 November

How America skimps on healthcare

Robert Pearl
27 November

States need to define emergency

Kevin Frazier
24 November
Videos
Who is the new House Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson?

Who is the new House Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson?

Our Staff
Video: Jordan bully tactics backfire, provoke threats and harassment of fellow Republicans

Video: Jordan bully tactics backfire, provoke threats and harassment of fellow Republicans

Our Staff
Video Rewind: Reflection on Indigenous Peoples' Day with Rev. F. Willis Johnson

Video Rewind: Reflection on Indigenous Peoples' Day with Rev. F. Willis Johnson

Our Staff
Video: The power of young voices

Video: The power of young voices

Our Staff
Video: Expert baffled by Trump contradicting legal team

Video: Expert baffled by Trump contradicting legal team

Our Staff
Video: Do white leaders hinder black aspirations?

Video: Do white leaders hinder black aspirations?

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: Dr. F. Willis Johnson in a rich conversation with Patrick McNeal

Our Staff
14 November

Podcast: Better choices, better elections

Our Staff
23 October

Podcast: Are state legislators really accountable to their voters?

Our Staff
06 October

Podcast: What does it take to “do democracy?”

Debilyn Molineaux
David Riordan
05 October
Recommended
Slovakia’s election deep fakes show how AI could be a danger to U.S. elections

Slovakia’s election deep fakes show how AI could be a danger to U.S. elections

Contributors
How to change the world: Sam Daley-Harris has a formula

How to change the world: Sam Daley-Harris has a formula

Big Picture
Podcast: America’s political orphans

Podcast: America’s political orphans

Big Picture
The Voter Choice Act reintroduced in the Senate

The Voter Choice Act reintroduced in the Senate

Big Picture
How America skimps on healthcare

How America skimps on healthcare

Big Picture
The conservative mind at 70

The conservative mind at 70

Opinion