Maryland Republicans take round one in redistricting challenge

Maryland Republicans challenging a proposed state constitutional amendment that would set standards for how congressional districts are drawn won an initial courtroom skirmish.

The 10-page decision issued Wednesday comes almost 24 hours after the conclusion of a daylong hearing in Annapolis that focused on process and whether or not lawmakers erred as they rushed a constitutional amendment to Maryland voters.

In his ruling, Anne Arundel County Circuit Court Judge Robert J. Thompson issued an injunction preventing the question from being placed on the ballot but stayed his order pending an expected appeal to the Supreme Court of Maryland.

“A chamber that holds a supermajority is still a chamber bound by the law,” said Delegate Matt Morgan, chair of the Maryland Freedom Caucus. “Today the court made clear that three-fifths of the vote doesn’t buy you an exemption from the rules you wrote yourself. Maryland doesn’t answer to kings, and it doesn’t answer to a legislature that thinks it’s one.”

An appeal and the pending decision would further tighten an Aug. 31 deadline for the Maryland State Board of Elections to finalize roughly 1,200 different ballot versions that will be used by voters across the state.

The case in Anne Arundel County Circuit court is one of two challenges to the proposed constitutional amendment that would set standards for how the state’s eight congressional districts are drawn.

On Tuesday, Thompson closed the hearing expressing concern about how the Democratic supermajority pushed the bill through during a special session earlier this month.

Should the amendment be approve by the voters, Republicans fear it will open a door to Maryland joining a flurry of hyper-partisan mid-cycle redistricting that has taken place in states controlled by both Democratic and Republican parties.

Currently, Democrats control seven of the state’s eight seats. The lone Republican, U.S. Rep. Andy Harris (R-1st), is the likely target of any effort to redraw maps. Some Democrats including Democratic Gov. Wes Moore have called the push for new maps an effort to make the districts “more competitive” but the intent, based on one map approved in February by the House of Delegates, focused on pushing more Democratic voters into the district represented by Harris.

That map stalled in the Senate.

This story will be updated