By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews
Two bills. One special session. Opposite visions of who should draw Maryland’s political maps.
Senate Bill 2100 asks Maryland voters to strip constitutional limits off how the General Assembly draws congressional districts. A second piece of legislation, drafted for the same special session, asks something close to the opposite: that the legislature give up map-drawing power entirely, to both congressional and state legislative districts alike, and hand it to a body of 188 elected citizens barred by law from being politicians, party officials, lobbyists, or their relatives.
The second bill asks something close to the opposite: that the legislature give up map-drawing power entirely.
The second bill is Del. Christopher Bouchat’s. Legislative Services drafted it as LR3744 and transmitted it to his office July 30, four days before the session gaveled in.
What LR3744 Actually Creates
The bill would establish a 188-member convention elected directly by voters and barred by law from being politicians, party officials, lobbyists, or their immediate families.
The bill would amend the Maryland Constitution to establish a “Legislative and Congressional Redistricting and Apportionment Convention” — 188 members, at least three per county, elected directly by voters in the year following each decennial census. To run for a seat, a candidate must be a registered voter with three years of continuous party registration (or three years continuously unaffiliated), at least 21 years old, and a state and county resident for set minimum periods. The eligibility bars are specific and sweeping: the bill disqualifies the governor or a candidate for governor, any member of Congress or the General Assembly or a candidate for either, elected local officials, party officers or employees, registered lobbyists, and current staff members or contractors serving any of those officials. Immediate family members of the governor, a member of Congress or the General Assembly, a local elected official, or a party officer are separately barred — that family restriction does not extend to relatives of lobbyists, contractors, or staff, who are disqualified only in their own right. Convention members serve without pay beyond expense reimbursement, and are barred from running for the Congress or General Assembly seats their own map creates during its first term.
The eligibility bars are specific and sweeping.
Once elected, the convention would adopt both a legislative and a congressional district plan, hold at least one public hearing per county before doing so, and operate under the Open Meetings and Public Information Acts with livestreamed proceedings. Certified plans go to the General Assembly, which can vote to challenge a plan’s legality — triggering review by the Supreme Court of Maryland, which must rule within 30 days. If the General Assembly doesn’t challenge a plan, it becomes law 31 days after certification automatically, without a legislative vote either way.
Tucked into Section 8-7A-02 is language with no equivalent in SB2100: an explicit statement that it is the General Assembly’s intent that neither legislative nor congressional districts “be established for the purpose of favoring or discriminating against an incumbent officeholder, a candidate for office, or a political party.”
A Structural Change Beyond Redistricting
One provision has nothing to do with who draws maps. The bill would require every House of Delegates district to consist of three single-member delegate seats, eliminating Maryland’s current mix of single- and multi-member delegate districts. That’s a change to the basic structure of House elections statewide, not a redistricting-standards question — and it sits inside a bill drafted for a special session whose stated purpose, per the July 20 memo from Ferguson and Peña-Melnyk, was legislation “concerning congressional redistricting standards.”
That’s a change to the basic structure of House elections statewide, not a redistricting-standards question.
Same Ballot, Same Deadline, Different Fight
Like SB2100, LR3744 is written to reach the November 2026 ballot as a constitutional amendment, with the same “For/Against” ballot format and the same certification path under Article XIV. Both bills also include a provision declaring that the amendment “affects multiple jurisdictions” so that Article XIV’s local-approval requirement doesn’t apply — identical legal boilerplate serving two incompatible visions of the same process.
Whether LR3744 was ever formally introduced with a bill number during the Aug. 3-5 session is something MDBayNews has not independently confirmed. The document obtained by this outlet is a Legislative Services “courtesy copy,” dated July 30, with the bill number field left blank; the transmittal email notes that backings could be picked up by Bouchat’s office starting 8:30 a.m. on Aug. 3, the session’s first day. A drafted LR becoming a filed bill requires the sponsor’s action once the session opens, and this outlet has not yet verified that step occurred.
Identical legal boilerplate serving two incompatible visions of the same process.
Bouchat has said before that his redistricting proposals have drawn zero co-sponsors across three consecutive sessions, a figure MDBayNews verified in its prior reporting on his record. Nothing reviewed for this piece indicates that pattern has changed for LR3744.
The Contrast, Plainly
LR3744 removes Annapolis from the map-drawing process altogether.
SB2100 removes constraints so Annapolis can draw a congressional map with fewer legal risks than the one Judge Battaglia struck down in 2022. LR3744 removes Annapolis from the map-drawing process altogether, for both congressional and legislative lines, and adds anti-gerrymandering intent language SB2100 doesn’t contain. Both are before the same special session. Only one has the backing of legislative leadership; the other, as of this writing, appears to have the backing of exactly one member.
Sources: LR3744, Department of Legislative Services, drafted July 28, 2026, transmitted July 30, 2026; email from Del. Christopher Bouchat forwarding the LR to MDBayNews, July 30, 2026; Senate Bill 2100, Maryland General Assembly, introduced Aug. 3, 2026; memo from Senate President William C. Ferguson IV and House Speaker Joseline A. Peña-Melnyk, July 20, 2026; MDBayNews prior reporting, The Bouchat Paradox series.
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