MD Redistricting Heads To November Ballot After Special Session

With a referendum bill clearing the state legislature on Tuesday, it will now be up to Maryland voters to give the final say on redrawing congressional districts.

The measure cleared both chambers of the Maryland State House during a special session called in early July by Senate President Bill Ferguson and House Speaker Joseline Peña-Melnyk.

House Bill 2100 passed the House of Delegates with a 96-38 vote, and the Senate with a 32-13 vote.

The state constitutional amendment needed to clear both chambers by Wednesday to appear on the November ballot.

Ferguson previously said the special session was needed after changes to the Voting Rights Act "created new uncertainty around congressional redistricting."

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore praised the measure's Tuesday passage in a statement, saying the redistricting effort was needed to ensure voting protections.

"I continue to believe that our country needs national redistricting reform. But until that happens, inaction is not an option. Maryland will not be caught flat-footed while Republicans engage in political redlining that guts decades of progress that the generations before us fought for," he said.

"By passing this constitutional amendment, the General Assembly has ensured that Maryland remains committed to being part of that conversation — and that the final decision will rest where it belongs: with the people of Maryland. I look forward to working together to pass the amendment with a strong YES vote in November."

Related:

• Maryland Republicans Predict Legal Challenge To Constitutional Amendment On Redistricting
• MD Gov. Wes Moore Says He's 'Very Concerned' Trump Will Interfere In Midterm Elections
• Redistricting In MD: Lawmakers Book Special Session For August

In a state where Democrats now occupy seven of the eight House seats, Republicans are calling the effort a blatant power grab — and a move that violates a new state law intended to give voters more time to consider proposed amendments.

If the amendment is ultimately approved, it would likely be part of a rapid reconfiguration of congressional district lines that began last year when President Donald Trump urged Republican-controlled states to adjust their maps to help the party in the 2026 midterm elections. Normally, redistricting happens just once a decade after new Census data is released.

Eight states — Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas — have redrawn maps to help Republicans, who could pick up as many as 16 seats due to the redistricting. New maps in California and Utah could give Democrats an advantage in six races.

Maryland moved more slowly — and with an approach that will not change districts for this year's elections — because Ferguson blocked an earlier initiative aimed at putting new maps in place for this year. He was worried that the state Supreme Court, with most of its members appointed by a Republican former governor, could backfire — especially because a judge in 2022 rejected a new map that could have boosted the Democrats.

The question that could go to voters is designed to make it hard for the court to reject redistricting. It would make it clear that the parameters the judge cited — including that districts be compact in form and have regard given to “natural boundaries” — apply only to state legislative districts, not congressional ones.

That would allow congressional districts to cross the Chesapeake Bay, which is the only way Democrats could draw a map that gives them an edge in every congressional district. Currently, the only district on the rural Eastern Shore east of the Bay is also the only one represented by a Republican, Rep. Andy Harris, the chair of the conservative House Freedom Caucus.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.