Moore Threatening Maryland Redistricting Retribution is Absurd

How can Maryland's Congressional Districts get any more unbalanced than they are?

Maryland Governor Wes Moore took time today, at least the time he wasn’t daring Donald Trump to invade Baltimore with the US Military, to suggest that Maryland could join the cavalcade of states threatening to join the ever-escalating redistricting wars:

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) said in a Sunday interview that he is actively looking into redistricting options in his state, as the partisan effort expands across the country.

“When I say all options are on the table, all options are on the table,” Moore said in an interview on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.”

Asked if he’s “actively looking” at redistricting now, Moore told moderator Margaret Brennan, “Yes, and I think we have to because I think what’s happened is this is what people hate about politics in the first place.”

If this seems to you like Wes Moore just grasping for another bit of attention from the National Media while he hovers at one-percent in a recent 2028 Presidential poll, you’re probably right. I would be hard-pressed to figure out how Maryland could get even more unbalanced than it already is. After all, 7 out of 8 Maryland Congressional seats are already held by Democrats.

These relatively clean districts are, of course, nothing compared to the aggressive Maryland gerrymandering of the early 21st Century that was the shame of the entire country.

Even so, let us remember that Common Cause highlighted how the Democrats passed the current districts back in 2023:

“During the General Assembly’s special session there was a floor debate in the Senate about the congressional map proposal. I had never seen a bill move so quickly. It went from a committee hearing and vote to third reader and passage on the floor within just a few hours. The map moved so quickly that no amendments were made in committee even with a significant amount of public input that day.

“While the map was on their reader in the Senate, I remember a Senator quoting our testimony in the midst of their floor debate. It caught me by surprise but was appropriate because it summed up the redistricting process so well. ‘People are disengaged because they know their feedback will receive very little consideration… Common Cause MD is taking no position because the outcome is preordained.’ Our testimony, while clearly in opposition, made the impact that we intended. As the Senator stated during his comment, the maps passed were drawn ‘independent of the people’s comments.’”

The fact that Moore is even talking about wasting taxpayer money and legislative time on a Congressional Redistricting Plan when Maryland controls 7/8 of the delegation shows the absurdity of unstructured chaos unleashed by Donald Trump and the Texas GOP in the first place. But since Moore is running for President, Marylanders will be forced to play along with this national charade of shame.

The irony of all of this is the fact that it will be nearly impossible to change the makeup of the Delegation to consist of nothing but Democrats. There is almost no permutation of Congressional District that makes it impossible for there to be no districts that would not elect a Republican.

That has a lot to do with Maryland’s unique geography. The Eastern Shore, from I-95 all the way down to Ocean City, will be in the same Congressional District. There is just no way around the fact that any map that splits the Eastern Shore would face judicial scrutiny due to the lack of geographic continuity of the districts. Any map that doesn’t keep the Shore Counties together would be so blatantly partisan as to render the entire map unconstitutional.

One way that Democrats might mess with the map is to take Andy Harris’s Baltimore County home out of the 1st Congressional District and steer the 1st either arond Harris’ Baltimore County base or southward across the Bay Bridge into Anne Arundel County. That might not accomplish the Democrats’ goals, either. For one thing, a Republican would almost certainly replace Harris in the new 1st District. Secondly, nothing would preclude Harris, who owns a home on the Eastern Shore, from just running in the District anyway and getting re-elected on name recognition.

Is all of this really worth the expenditure of taxpayer resources to change?

The bottom line with this charade is just how it highlights Wes Moore’s failure as a Governor. As Maryland continues to struggle with the ramifications of federal budget cuts, tariffs, and Moore’s self-inflicted budget crisis, he is focused instead on national politics. Moore continues, as he always does, putting politics over people in a way that highlights how he is little more than a dollar store Gavin Newsom. Marylanders should again tell Wes “NO MOORE.”