A House committee, without debate and without dissent, added redistricting language to a Senate elections bill Tuesday and sent it the full House, where it could be taken up as early as this week.
The amendment, offered in the House Government, Labor and Elections Committee by Del. Kris Fair (D-Frederick), would “authorize the General Assembly to grant original jurisdiction to the Supreme Court of Maryland to review the congressional districting of the state.”
It does not appear the 22-word amendment added to Senate Bill 5 is the long-rumored “plan B” to resuscitate a House-backed congressional redistricting plan that has been stopped dead in the Senate. Regardless, the Senate is likely to kill the amended bill should it come back from the House.
Fair did not respond to requests for comment on his amendment Tuesday evening.
There was no discussion of the amendment in committee, which approved the measure 14-0, with three members excused and one absent. The entire committee meeting lasted less than two minutes.
The proposal moved so quickly that even the committee’s Republicans, who have been dead set against redistricting all year, voted for the amendment in what House Minority Leader Jason Buckel (R-Allegany) said later was likely just a mistake.
“There was a lot of confusion in committee about what the amendment was all about,” Buckel said in a phone interview following the committee vote.
That was confirmed by Del. Chris Tomlinson (R-Frederick and Carroll) a committee member who said the amendment vote was rushed and he “definitely will not” be voting for the amended bill when it reaches the House floor.
“No one on the Republican side supports this, and we will vigorously” oppose it, Buckel said.
With less than three weeks left in this legislative session, Buckel said he does not believe it is possible for House Democrats to slip through language that would lead to redistricting this year. He suspects the Fair amendment is an attempt to make Maryland’s rules for congressional redistricting align with the more flexible rules for legislative districts, so that it will be easier for Democrats to draw a map to their liking down the road.
The amendment was added to SB 5, sponsored by Sen. Cheryl Kagan (D-Montgomery). Kagan’s bill is a proposed constitutional amendment that would require a special election to be held in most cases to fill vacancies in the House of Delegates or the Senate.
Currently, legislative vacancies are filled by the governor, who chooses from candidates submitted by the local central committee of the former member’s party, no matter how much time is left in a term. The bill has been submitted unsuccessfully for at least the last five years. It’s could fail again this year, as the Senate, which has steadfastly opposed redistricting efforts this year, is unlikely to accept the Fair amendment.
“I assume that the bill is now dead,” Kagan said Tuesday evening.
Kagan has worked the bill for several years. This session, she expressed hope for the success of the bill after the election of a new House Speaker and the creation of a new committee meant it would not return to the House Ways and Means Committee that bottled it up in previous years.
While the Senate could ask the House to withdraw the amendment, that would require an on-the-record vote on a redistricting bill by senators, something Senate leadership has been careful to avoid this year. The more likely result is that a version of SB 5 with the Fair amendment would simply be left to languish without a Senate vote in the weeks left.
There is a House version of the bill, House Bill 50, sponsored by Del. Linda Foley (D-Montgomery), that could serve as a vehicle for legislative vacancy elections if the House wanted to re vive the measure. That bill got a hearing in early February, but has been sitting in Government, Labor and Elections without a vote since.
Congressional redistricting usually occurs every 10 years, after the decennial census determines how the population of each state and, from that, how many congressional seats are apportioned to it. But a flurry of mid-decade congressional redistricting was spurred this year when Texas redrew its maps, at President Donald Trump’s urging, to give Republicans a chance to gain seats in this fall’s midterm elections.
California, a Democratic state, responded in kind and soon states across the country were engaged in a redistricting arms race.
Redistricting was a top priority for Gov. Wes Moore (D) and House Speaker Joseline Peña-Melnyk (D-Prince George’s and Anne Arundel) for this session. Moore appointed an advisory committee that held a handful of virtual meetings in the fall before settling conceptual map that heavily favored Democrats.
The House quickly introduced the committee’s map and passed it, sending it to the Senate where it has stalled since early February.
Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) has maintained that Democrats in the Senate are opposed to mid-decade redistricting. Not only is it just the wrong thing to do, according to Ferguson, but it could backfire on Democrats who currently hold a 7-1 advantage in the state’s eight congressional districts thanks to a highly favorable redistricting in 2022, after the last census.
Ferguson has said that redistricting now could open the state to court challenges and lead to a judge redrawing the lines to be more favorable to Republicans. He also said Democrats could weaken some currently safe seats by siphoning off voters to buttress other districts, making incumbents vulnerable.
Since coming over from the House, the redistricting bill, House Bill 488, has been sitting in the Senate Rules Committee without a hearing and without a vote. He has said that it’s now too late to consider redistricting, as the deadline for candidates to file for this fall’s elections passed on Feb. 24.
Ferguson did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday on the House redistricting amendment.