The Maryland Senate blocked redistricting all session. Then the voters spoke. By Wednesday morning, Wes Moore was on CNN saying it’s happening.
By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews
The Maryland Senate’s redistricting firewall held for six months. It lasted about eighteen hours after the polls closed.
On Tuesday night, the two most powerful architects of that firewall faced their electorates. Senate President Bill Ferguson survived his primary in Baltimore’s District 46, but was held to 58 percent by a sailboat captain with no PAC money. Senate Majority Leader Nancy King lost outright in Montgomery County’s District 39, defeated by a 33-year-old first-time candidate by more than twelve percentage points.
By Wednesday morning, Gov. Wes Moore was standing outside the State House telling reporters a special session is coming. “We are planning on coming back to have a special session,” Moore said. He called redistricting an “emergency” and added: “We know that there are the votes in the Senate.”
Moore’s First Call After the Primary: Not Your Electric Bill
That last sentence is the one that matters. For six months, those votes didn’t exist — or at least Ferguson said they didn’t. The House passed a full redistricting map in February, 99-37. The bill died in the Senate without a floor vote. Then the House passed a constitutional amendment. That died too. Ferguson’s position, maintained under pressure from Moore, from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who traveled to Annapolis personally to lobby him, and from national Democrats who viewed Maryland as a critical pickup opportunity, was that the votes weren’t there and the legal risk was too high.
The primary results didn’t change the math. They changed the atmosphere.
Moore told reporters Wednesday that the Senate Democratic Caucus was meeting Thursday to discuss the path forward. Ferguson’s spokesperson, David Schuhlein, described the meeting afterward as a “good conversation, thoughtful discussion — more to follow.”
The scope question is where Ferguson and Moore still diverge, at least publicly. Ferguson’s stated position is a constitutional amendment — removing the language a judge cited when striking down Maryland’s 2022 redistricting maps, specifically the requirement that districts be compact and respect natural boundaries including the Chesapeake Bay. That amendment, if passed by the legislature and approved by voters in November, would give future legislatures more flexibility to draw maps ahead of the 2028 elections. The deadline to place a constitutional amendment on the November ballot is August 4 — less than six weeks away, which is why lawmakers have been asked to hold July 16–22 and July 30–August 5 on their calendars.
Moore wants more. Asked whether the special session would address maps directly or only the constitutional amendment, Moore said: “I’m not dogmatic on this, and I know this is something that both the House and the Senate have to work through. But what I do know is this: Inaction is not an option.”
The Maryland Senate’s redistricting firewall held for six months. It lasted about eighteen hours after the polls closed.
That careful non-answer leaves the door open to a map. Ferguson’s door, if it’s opening at all, is opening more narrowly.
There is also a logistics problem that no one in Democratic leadership is eager to discuss loudly. King’s loss and the retirement of several senators — including Joanne Benson, Pamela Beidle, and Dalya Attar, who also lost her primary Tuesday — means the caucus that would vote on a special session bill is not the same caucus that blocked redistricting during the regular session. Some of those senators will need to return to Annapolis as lame ducks to cast votes that will shape the chamber they’re leaving. Beidle told the Baltimore Sun she plans to return if a session is called. King did not respond to a request for comment.
The Republican response was fast and pointed. Senate Minority Leader Steve Hershey said Marylanders “are tired of Democrat leaders flip-flopping about partisan map-drawing to intentionally eliminate two-party representation,” and argued that if lawmakers are called back to Annapolis, the focus should be on economic relief for Maryland families rather than congressional map manipulation. “Maryland families are struggling with affordability, and they expect action on the issues that impact their daily lives,” Hershey said. “If a Special Session is convened, our caucus will be ready to introduce legislation that actually lowers costs — not one that plays into partisan politics.”
“Marylanders are tired of Democrat leaders flip-flopping about partisan map-drawing to intentionally eliminate two-party representation.” — Senate Minority Leader Steve Hershey
Hershey’s framing is the one the Cox campaign should be amplifying from now until November. Moore is calling a special session — on redistricting. Not on the $1.5 billion structural deficit. Not on electricity rates that have climbed 44 percent since 2020. Not on the tax increases enacted last session that are landing on Maryland families right now. On congressional maps.
Del. Kathy Szeliga, who successfully challenged Maryland’s 2022 redistricting maps in court, has already signaled she will fight again. “If they try to illegally change the constitution to make it unconstitutional, we will challenge that,” she said.
The legal threat is real. Maryland’s last redistricting effort was thrown out entirely by a judge who found it the product of extreme partisan gerrymandering. The constitutional amendment Ferguson is proposing is specifically designed to remove the legal basis for that ruling — but whether that strategy survives a new court challenge is an open question that Szeliga and Maryland Republicans are prepared to test.
“If they try to illegally change the constitution to make it unconstitutional, we will challenge that.” — Del. Kathy Szeliga
What changed between January and now is not the law, not the maps, and not the vote count in the Senate. What changed is that the senators who built the firewall watched what happened to the ones who did. King is gone. Ferguson is weakened. The incoming caucus ran against the old one.
Moore didn’t move the Senate. The voters did.
Sources: The Baltimore Banner, Fox45/WBFF Baltimore, WMAR2 News, Baltimore Sun, Maryland Daily Record, WTOP, Fox Baltimore.
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