Gov. Wes Moore signed legislation Wednesday sending a constitutional amendment on congressional redistricting to Maryland voters this November, capping a three-day special legislative session that drew sharp disagreement between the state’s Democratic supermajority and its Republican minority.
The bill, HB 2100, does not redraw Maryland’s congressional map on its own. Instead, it asks voters to decide whether the state constitution’s redistricting standards for legislative districts — including requirements around compactness and preserving communities of interest — should continue to apply to congressional districts, or whether congressional maps should instead be governed only by looser federal standards. If voters approve the amendment on the Nov. 3 ballot, the General Assembly would gain clear legal authority to redraw congressional lines ahead of the 2028 elections without facing the state-level compactness challenges that have applied in the past; if voters reject it, Maryland’s congressional map would remain bound by the standards a state court applied in 2022 until after the 2030 census. The measure would not create a new map itself and would not affect any candidate already running in this year’s general election.
The House of Delegates passed the measure 96-38 and the Senate followed 32-13, with support coming entirely from Democratic lawmakers. Every Republican in both chambers voted against the bill.
Moore, in a statement released after signing the bill, said the amendment was a response to redistricting efforts in Republican-led states that he said were encouraged by President Donald Trump, framing the move as necessary so Maryland is not “caught flat-footed” amid a broader national fight over congressional maps. Moore said he wanted the amendment to pass in November with what he called “a strong YES vote.”
Republicans offered a starkly different account of the same three days in Annapolis. U.S. Rep. Andy Harris, Maryland’s lone Republican member of Congress and chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, said in an interview that the “gerrymandering that this constitutional amendment sets up” would fracture areas of common interest into districts dominated by urban and suburban voters, diluting the influence of rural residents on the Eastern Shore he represents. Harris said he expects the amendment, if approved, would face a court challenge. House Minority Leader Jason Buckel separately criticized limits placed on public testimony during the special session, saying in a statement that the bill hearing was “obviously intended to be a brief and meaningless formality.” Adding to Republican frustration, House and Senate leaders had barred introduction of any legislation unrelated to redistricting during the session, instructing the Department of Legislative Services not to draft other bills.
The debate also drew comment from at least one Southern Maryland lawmaker. Del. C.T. Wilson, a Charles County Democrat, argued during floor debate that Congress’ inaction on national redistricting reform left the state little choice but to act, saying he was motivated by frustration that “Congress is doing nothing.”
The special session followed a shift in position from Senate President Bill Ferguson, a Baltimore Democrat, who had blocked earlier redistricting proposals this year over concerns that acting too quickly could backfire in court. Ferguson has said his thinking changed after the U.S. Supreme Court weakened parts of the Voting Rights Act in April, a ruling he said opened the door for Republican-led Southern states to more easily redraw districts that had elected Democrats. Maryland Republicans have separately noted that a 2021 congressional map drawn by the state’s then-Democratic-controlled legislature was itself struck down by a state court in 2022 after a judge found the map contained serious partisan bias, forcing lawmakers to adopt a more competitive map ahead of that year’s elections. Maryland’s 1st Congressional District, the seat Harris has held for eight terms, currently spans all of the Eastern Shore counties along with Harford County and part of Baltimore County.
For Southern Maryland, the outcome carries less direct stake than it does for the Eastern Shore, since the region’s congressional seats are not the ones most likely to be redrawn under the amendment. But the debate has still touched the region through lawmakers like Wilson, and the broader fight over redistricting standards would apply statewide if voters approve the change.
Because HB 2100 is a constitutional amendment, its fate now rests entirely with voters rather than the legislature. The question will appear on the same November ballot as this year’s midterm elections, giving Marylanders the final say on whether to loosen the constitutional standards that currently govern how the state’s congressional districts are drawn.
