Maryland voters will weigh in this November on a proposed congressional redistricting amendment backed by Democrats, a measure tied to the intensifying national fight over which party will control the U.S. House in future elections.
In a Thursday ruling, the Maryland Supreme Court ordered the proposed constitutional amendment onto the November ballot, overturning two lower court decisions that had kept it from voters. The justices, however, instructed officials to revise the ballot summary.
The ruling delivers an important legal win for Democrats, who are seeking to answer a Republican redistricting push championed by President Donald Trump.
“Winning in court was only the first step,” said Ned Miller, chief strategist for Fight Back MD, the group supporting the measure. “We are building the statewide campaign to educate voters, organize supporters and build the coalition necessary to stand up to Donald Trump and pass Question 3 in November.”
Democrats currently control seven of Maryland’s eight seats in the U.S. House.
The amendment would have no impact on the congressional map used in this year’s midterm elections.
If voters approve it, though, the change could give Democratic lawmakers more room to redraw congressional districts in a way that positions the party to compete for all eight seats in the 2028 elections.
State Senate Minority Leader Steve Hershey, among the Republican lawmakers who challenged the measure in court, said he welcomed the court’s conclusion that the ballot language was unfair.
But he said it wasn’t the role of the judiciary to rewrite what lawmakers had done.
“The Court ultimately provided political cover for the General Assembly by allowing this misleading constitutional amendment to remain on the ballot,” Hershey said in a statement.
Maryland amendment would sidestep a prior court case
Democratic Gov. Wes Moore called lawmakers into a special session in August to refer the amendment to the November ballot.
The amendment would undo the foundation of a 2022 court ruling that struck down a previous Democratic redistricting plan as a “product of extreme partisan gerrymandering.” That judge said a constitutional provision requiring compact districts that respect “natural boundaries” applied to congressional districts.
But the proposed amendment would apply those parameters only to state legislative districts.
That could allow lawmakers to draw congressional districts that cross the Chesapeake Bay, potentially reshaping a district held by U.S. Rep. Andy Harris, the state’s only Republican representative and the chair of the conservative House Freedom Caucus.
Supreme Court overrules claims on missed deadlines
Lower courts ruled that lawmakers didn’t abide by their own requirements when referring the amendment to the ballot.
At the heart of the case was a law passed earlier this year that set a July 1 deadline for the secretary of state to certify information about statewide ballot questions to the Maryland State Board of Elections.
The same law also set a 15-day public comment period.
Those deadlines had already passed by the time lawmakers approved the redistricting amendment on Aug. 4.
Lawyers for Democratic Attorney General Anthony Brown argued that those deadlines didn’t matter. They said that law didn’t apply to the redistricting amendment because lawmakers wrote their own ballot summary for it, using their constitutional authority. The Supreme Court ultimately ruled that the lower court got it wrong.
Republican lawmakers who sued also had won in lower courts on claims that the ballot question wording was misleading and that the amendment violated a single-issue requirement in the state constitution by including a provision giving original jurisdiction over congressional redistricting lawsuits to the state Supreme Court.
The state Supreme Court rejected the multiple-subject argument but concurred that the ballot wording was misleading. However, the court said that wasn’t enough to prevent the amendment from going to the people. It instead directed a change to be made to the ballot wording that voters will see.
Maryland could join a national redistricting effort
Republicans had hoped to gain as many as 16 additional seats this year from new U.S. House districts enacted in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas.
But the Missouri Supreme Court on Thursday blocked new congressional districts from being used in the November election. Instead it ordered a statewide vote in November on whether to uphold or reject the maps in response to a citizens’ petition seeking a referendum.
Democrats hope to gain as many as five congressional seats from new districts this year in California and Utah.
In May, the Virginia Supreme Court struck down a redistricting effort that could have helped Democrats win up to four additional seats.
It ruled that the Democratic-led legislature violated procedural requirements when placing an amendment on the ballot.
