Legislation redrawing the state’s eight congressional districts awaits final approval in the House of Delegates, before heading to the Senate and legislative purgatory.
The House gave preliminary approval Friday to House Bill 488 after the Democratic supermajority rebuffed a series of Republican amendments over two days. Del. C.T. Wilson (D-Charles), sponsor of the bill, said it makes the state’s congressional districts “fairer.”
“We’re, in fact, forcing the issue, and the issue isn’t R and D,” Wilson said. “The issue is standing up to this current administration.”
House Republicans had another word for the bill and the process that led to the maps: “Rigged.”
Democrats in the state began the effort to redraw congressional districts last fall after President Donald Trump called on Texas and other states to redraw their maps to secure more safe Republican seats in the House of Representatives ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
Wilson said “Maryland wants people to stand up to this administration as a whole. What this is doing is forcing that issue.”
The bill recasts all eight Maryland congressional districts to some extent, but focuses most heavily on making the 1st District, held by the state’s sole Republican member of Congress, Rep. Andy Harris, more competitive for a Democrat. The current Eastern Shore district would lose the upper Shore and be redrawn to stretch across the Chesapeake Bay into Anne Arundel and Howard counties.
Wilson rejected criticisms that the map will result in his party holding all eight congressional seats.
“What Maryland does want, they don’t need 8-and-0, they need eight fighters,” Wilson said.
“We are playing fair. We are doing the right things,” he said.
The bill also proposes amendments to the state constitution, one of which would say that language requiring compact and contiguous districts applies only to state legislative districts, not congressional. The amendment is intended to thwart a court from revisiting a “novel” interpretation of state law in 2022 that struck down an earlier map.
Wilson called the change “clarifying.”
But House Republicans said the proposed changes make an already biased map worse.
“You’ve already done what Texas has done,” Del. Nicholaus R. Kipke (R-Anne Arundel) said of the current 7-1 split of Maryland congressional districts. “You’re going further by eliminating the one possible district where a Republican can get elected in this state.
“And the gaslighting that has gone on about making the districts fairer? Well, you could have done 50-50, districts … you didn’t,” Kipke said. “Saying it’s fair is gaslighting. You’re only picking up one seat by doing this, eliminating any Republican voice.”
The bill was the subject of two hours of debate spread over two days. Republicans unsuccessfully offered five amendments, including one to prohibit midcycle redistricting and another that would have substituted Wilson’s map with one drawn in 2022 by a commission appointed by former Gov. Larry Hogan (R). That panel consisted of three Democrats, three Republicans and three unaffiliated registered voters, none of whom held elected office.
Wilson’s bill has been on greased rails since its introduction a week ago. The original hope of a final House vote by Friday was delayed by the snowstorm and procedural delays. The House is now scheduled to take up the bill for a final vote when it reconvenes Monday at 3 p.m. — five hours earlier than usual — and then send it to the Senate.
But Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) remains an outspoken opponent of a mid-decade redistricting, and he appears to continue having the support of a majority of the Democratic Caucus. Once in the Senate, the bill is expected to stall in the Senate Rules Committee. It is not expected to receive a hearing or a Senate vote.
That has not stopped Gov. Wes Moore (D) from ramping up rhetoric aimed at pressuring Ferguson and other Senate Democrats.
“So, I know that history is not going to remember the Trump Vance administration kindly,” Moore said during testimony on Wilson’s bill before a House committee Tuesday. “But to all those who kowtow, for all those who are trying to move the goal post, for all those who are looking for all the reasons why we should not respond, instead of using your energy to find ways to respond, history will remember you worse.”
Ferguson shrugged off Moore’s comments, saying the Senate is focused on issues that are top of mind for voters around the state.
“I welcome the governor’s opinion and thoughts at any point,” Ferguson told reporters Friday morning. “I know what we are doing in the Senate. We are doing what I hear Marylanders asking us to do. They are worried about the cost of living. They’re worried that our economy is not growing fast enough, and they’re scared of a lawless Trump administration.
“And so, what we’re doing in the Senate every single day is focusing on those priorities that I hear directly from Marylanders on their doorsteps every single weekend,” he said. “I know that that is very similar to the vast majority of members of the Senate.”