Maryland lawmakers convened a special session Monday to begin work on a constitutional amendment that would give Democrats a freer hand to redraw the state’s congressional districts, a change that could cost the delegation’s lone Republican his seat by 2028.
The General Assembly will meet through Wednesday to consider the measure, which would need approval from three-fifths of both chambers before going to voters on the Nov. 3 general election ballot. If voters approve it, lawmakers could take up new congressional maps for the 2028 cycle.
Democrats currently hold seven of Maryland’s eight House seats. The eighth belongs to Rep. Andy Harris, chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, who has represented the 1st Congressional District since 2011. The district covers the Eastern Shore, a mostly rural peninsula separated from the rest of the state by the Chesapeake Bay.
The amendment targets language a state judge used in 2022 to strike down a map drawn by the legislature the year before. That map pulled communities across the bay into Harris’ district. The judge called the result a “product of extreme partisan gerrymandering,” citing constitutional requirements that districts be compact and give regard to “natural boundaries.”
The legislation under consideration would specify that those requirements apply only to General Assembly districts, not congressional ones.
House Speaker Joseline Pena-Melnyk said the state “needs a durable, transparent constitutional framework for congressional redistricting that reflects the evolving legal landscape.”
Republicans objected to both the substance of the amendment and the process. House Minority Leader Jason Buckel said in a statement that “we are very concerned with the significant limitations on witnesses, and the reality that any bill hearing is obviously intended to be a brief and meaningless formality.”
Harris said the “gerrymandering that this constitutional amendment sets up” would divide communities of interest into districts dominated by urban and suburban voters, cutting the political weight of rural residents. He said the maps would face a court challenge.
Senate Minority Leader Stephen Hershey Jr. called the session an attempt to “silence the last dissenting voice” in the state’s delegation. “Marylanders are watching their bills go up and their options go down, and his response is to spend political capital on a Washington power play,” Hershey said of Gov. Wes Moore.
Moore, a Democrat who criticized legislative leaders for declining to redistrict earlier this year, said the amendment leaves the decision with voters rather than “party bosses.”
The session is part of a national redistricting fight that began a year ago, when President Trump urged Republican-led states to redraw maps to protect the party’s House majority. Republicans expect to gain as many as 16 seats from new maps in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana and Alabama. Democrats project up to six additional seats from California and Utah.
New York’s legislature has also approved a proposed constitutional amendment authorizing mid-decade redistricting. That measure requires another round of legislative approval next year before reaching voters.
