Maryland Democratic Gov. Wes Moore said Wednesday he wants the state to move forward with redrawing its congressional map and have the Democratic-controlled legislature vote on the recommendations of a commission he appointed, despite opposition from a fellow Democrat who warned that changing district lines mid-decade could backfire.
In an interview with The Associated Press during the first day of the state’s annual 90-day session, Moore said he believes the General Assembly has both the authority and responsibility to vote on the commission’s recommendations. “This is a thorough process that they have gone through, and I think when they complete their work, it’ll then go in front of the House and then go in front of the Senate, and I do think that the bodies at that point should take it to their members,” Moore said.
Moore also argued that Maryland should not delay if other states are redrawing. He said he called for the Maryland commission to explore redistricting because, if other states redraw their maps, Maryland officials should not “sit on their hands.”
Moore’s comments come as Maryland Democrats hold a larger legislative and federal delegation advantage. The AP report said Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-1 in the state, and that the party already holds a 7-1 edge over Republicans in Maryland’s U.S. House delegation.
The push for congressional redistricting is occurring in a broader national context. The AP reported that President Donald Trump started an unusual redistricting plan in July by calling on Texas Republicans to redraw their congressional map to create more favorable districts for the GOP even though, the AP said, there was no new census data to base the changes on.
So far, the AP said the mid-decade redistricting battle has resulted in nine more seats that Republicans believe they can win and six more seats that Democrats think they can win, leaving the GOP up by three. The AP also noted that redistricting is being litigated in several states and that there is no guarantee the parties will win the seats they have redrawn.
Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson, also a Democrat, has taken a cautious view of any effort to change the map. The AP reported that Ferguson said an attempt to flip a seat held by Republican Rep. Andy Harris could jeopardize at least one seat and potentially two that now are held by Democrats.
Ferguson pointed to how prior Maryland map changes played out in court. The AP report said Ferguson noted that a congressional map adopted in 2021 was ruled unconstitutional by a judge who described it as “a product of extreme partisan gerrymandering,” and that Maryland passed another map in 2022 and the parties dropped their legal fight. Ferguson also warned that redrawing again could prompt another legal challenge and allow a court to impose districts.
Ferguson told the AP that those risks could cut against Democrats’ goal of gaining additional seats. “The reason we don’t do this is because there are huge risks associated with it that not only risk us not moving forward in the objective of having another Democratic seat,” Ferguson said. “It would be, in my opinion, a higher likelihood that we would lose a seat, rather than gain.”
Ferguson also raised concerns about election timing. The AP report said he noted that changing the map could be disruptive to Maryland’s election calendar, including a Feb. 24 candidate filing deadline and a primary scheduled for June 23. He declined to say whether he would hold a vote on a map sent to the Senate, calling the question hypothetical and saying, “We’ll see,” while adding, “I think we’re already too late generally, and so we’ll see what happens in the debate moving forward.”
Maryland House Speaker Joseline Peña-Melnyk took a different approach, according to the AP report. In a recent interview, she said she supports the work the governor’s redistricting commission has done, and she said she wants to wait and see what the recommendation is before commenting on how to proceed.