Maryland’s attempt to replicate California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s mid-cycle redistricting feat is hitting a brick wall of Democratic divisions as conservative critics line up to mount legal challenges.
Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson, a Democrat, is single-handedly standing in the way of the gerrymandering push by Gov. Wes Moore (D-MD) and his allies, creating tensions with state and national Democrats.
Citing perceived legal and political risks, Ferguson is unyielding in his blockade of Moore’s new congressional map to net the party an additional U.S. House seat by sweeping all eight districts and ousting House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris (R-MD), even as the Maryland House passed the legislation Monday night.
“The world is uncertain, the world is crazy, and we have a limited amount of time and energy and focus, and we have to put it where it matters most,” Ferguson recently told reporters, citing a state budget deficit and the economy. “We’ve got to pass policies that truly and actually protect Marylanders against Trump administration.”
The standoff could carry national consequences, with Democrats arguing that flipping even one seat in Maryland could help determine control of the House in 2026. Moore, who’s seeking a second term as governor and is a potential 2028 presidential contender, has tried to frame the gerrymandering push as an accountability measure against President Donald Trump.
“I know that history is not going to remember the Trump-Vance administration kindly,” Moore recently told state lawmakers as he testified in favor of the proposed map. “But to all those who kowtow, or all those who are trying to move the goalposts, 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.”
Maryland Republican lawmakers and activist groups, meanwhile, say pro-redistricting Democrats are repeating the same mistakes that led a 2021 gerrymandering effort to be overturned by the courts.
“This is a rerun of an unlawful gerrymander that a court already threw out,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, whose group sued to overturn the last gerrymander. “Maryland Democrats appear determined to entrench partisan power at the expense of constitutional limits and voters’ rights. We are watching these developments closely.”
The new gerrymandered congressional map drawn by Maryland Democrats would apply to the 2026 midterm elections but require voter approval this November for the 2028 and 2030 elections. Despite passage by the Maryland House on Monday, the legislation is likely dead on arrival in the state Senate, thanks to Ferguson’s opposition.
Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD) echoes other Democrats in arguing Maryland should gerrymander because several Republican-led states have redrawn their maps ahead of November. Alsobrooks, who chaired Moore’s redistricting commission that green-lighted the new map, said the recent controversy surrounding Trump’s deportation agenda was another call to action.
“These are not ordinary times. We are watching Americans who have now been slaughtered on the streets of America,” Alsobrooks told the Washington Examiner, referring to the two deadly shootings of citizens in Minnesota by federal agents. “We heard from Marylanders who, I think pretty strongly, have said they want us to do something to make sure that their vote will be counted in these midterm elections.”
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) told the Washington Examiner he “supported the congressional redistricting effort from the start, and I urge everybody to get it done.”
Ferguson and Moore declined to comment on this story.
Ferguson has called the mid-decade redistricting push “objectively unconstitutional.” The Senate president has also expressed concern that it could open the door to legal scrutiny by the conservative-leaning Maryland Supreme Court of the current map, which was not subjected to court review after it was ordered to be redrawn.
It’s an outcome Republican lawmakers and Judicial Watch see as a very real possibility that could lead to a 6-2 Democrat vs. Republican split in the state’s U.S. House seats. The current split favors Democrats 7-1, and the proposed map would make it 8-0.
Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown, whose office would have to defend the process in court, has not weighed in publicly. His office declined to comment.
Redistricting proponents believe the worst-case scenario would be that the new map is again ruled unconstitutional, and the state maintains its current districts ahead of the midterm elections.
“The current effort is not about fairness; it’s about advancing Wes Moore’s presidential aspirations,” Harris, whose district would be gerrymandered to stretch across the Chesapeake Bay to favor Democrats, said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “Hakeem Jeffries has given him the order, and he’s faithfully obeying.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) is among the congressional Democrats pressuring Ferguson, arguing that the party’s bid to retake the chamber could be jeopardized by any single seat. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), a member of leadership who’s embraced the redistricting wars being waged across the country, has urged Ferguson to either get on board or be replaced.
In neighboring Virginia, Democrats hit a recent legal snag when a judge ruled their redistricting effort invalid.
DEMOCRATS TRY TO KEEP UP WITH REPUBLICANS IN NATIONAL REDISTRICTING WAR
Moore foreshadowed he would be “so angry” if his vision fails to become reality in the Old Line State.
“If we end up with a Republican House and part of the reason is because Maryland did not move, none of that — forget politically, right?” Moore recently told CNN. “For my soul, none of that will matter, because it just means that we kowtowed as a state.”
