By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews
The Republican lawsuit challenging Maryland’s redistricting ballot question — filed late Aug. 6 and covered by MDBayNews the following day — has been sealed from public view for days, and even the attorneys representing the plaintiffs say they don’t know why. Rather than wait for an explanation, a separate group of Eastern Shore Republicans filed a second, publicly accessible lawsuit Monday making related but distinct arguments.
Nobody Will Say Why the First Case Is Sealed
The original suit, filed in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court by all seven members of the Maryland Freedom Caucus, Senate Minority Leader Steve Hershey, Senate Minority Whip Justin Ready, and Oversight Project president Mike Howell, doesn’t appear in Maryland Judiciary Case Search or on public courthouse terminals. An Anne Arundel Circuit Court clerk confirmed to the Daily Record that the matter is under seal. Neither a judiciary spokesperson nor Attorney General Anthony Brown’s office, which represents the defendants, answered questions about why before the paper’s deadline.
Samuel Dewey, an Oversight Project attorney on the plaintiffs’ legal team, told the Daily Record the sealing shouldn’t have happened at all: “That should not be the case.” Dewey said his team had filed a motion to shield Howell’s home address specifically, citing death threats Howell receives — but that motion didn’t ask to seal the entire case, only that one piece of information. The case has been specially assigned to Anne Arundel Circuit Judge Robert Thompson.
That should not be the case.
This matters beyond procedural curiosity. The lawsuit is seeking an expedited ruling ahead of a ballot question slated to be printed on millions of ballots starting Sept. 3, and neither the public nor other news organizations can currently see what’s being filed or argued in a case moving toward a deadline that fast.
The lawsuit is seeking an expedited ruling ahead of a ballot question slated to be printed on millions of ballots starting Sept. 3.
The Second Suit Takes a Different Angle
The new complaint, filed Monday in Dorchester County Circuit Court and not sealed, is officially styled Wheatley v. Maryland State Board of Elections. Its lead plaintiff, per the court docket, is Lindsay Mydra Wheatley, a Church Creek resident — not any of the elected officials who joined the case, though she isn’t a purely private citizen either: Wheatley is a member of the Dorchester County Republican Central Committee, with her current term expiring this year. Del. Christopher Troy Adams — whose district covers Caroline, Dorchester, Talbot, and Wicomico counties — Sen. Mary Beth Carozza, Sen. John Frederick Mautz IV, and Sen. Christopher Read West are also plaintiffs. All five are represented by Strider Lee Dickson of the Annapolis firm McAllister, DeTar, Showalter & Walker — a separate legal team from Samuel Dewey and the Oversight Project, which is handling the sealed Anne Arundel case. These are two distinct legal efforts pursuing overlapping arguments, not one coordinated filing.
These are two distinct legal efforts pursuing overlapping arguments, not one coordinated filing.
The defendant list is considerably broader than a single state agency. Beyond the Maryland State Board of Elections, Secretary of State Susan Lee, and State Elections Administrator Jared DeMarinis, the complaint separately names the county boards of elections for Worcester, Talbot, Wicomico, Dorchester, and Baltimore County, along with four individuals — Jim Shalleck, Victoria Jackson-Stanley, Eric Bryant, and Diane Butler — whose specific roles MDBayNews has not yet confirmed from the docket alone. Notably, Baltimore County isn’t on the Eastern Shore, which complicates a reading of this as a purely regional complaint. The Attorney General’s office, represented by Daniel Michael Kobrin, entered its appearance for all defendants Aug. 11, one day after the case was filed. The complaint is formally a “Petition for Review Under Md. Code Ann., Election Law § 12-202 and Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief,” and its exhibits include the enacted and amended versions of HB2100 alongside an item labeled “Executive Order 01.01.2026.14” — a document this outlet has not yet identified or reviewed.
Like the sealed case, the Dorchester suit argues lawmakers missed statutory deadlines. But it adds two arguments the first suit didn’t emphasize as its centerpiece. First, it challenges the actual ballot language voters will see, calling the summary “inaccurate, misleading, and otherwise insufficient.” Second, it argues the amendment violates the Maryland Constitution’s single-subject requirement for ballot measures, claiming it improperly “logrolls” unrelated proposals into one question — specifically, that the provision overriding existing election-law deadlines is a separate subject from the redistricting standards change itself.
What should have happened was three questions.
Adams framed the argument in more basic terms: “What should have happened was three questions… the Democrats bypassed that, and we contend that they can’t do that.” He also criticized the process as opaque: the ballot question, he said, asks voters “in a less-than-transparent way… to literally vote to remove rights that they enjoy,” without “telling them that’s exactly what they’re doing when they’re voting.” On Republican unity across both suits, Adams said there was “harmony amongst all Republicans” in the legislature’s “distaste for the process.”
What the Ballot Will Actually Say
The State Board of Elections has since posted the finalized ballot language. The amendment is Question 3 on the November ballot, formally Chapter 881 of the 2026 legislative session. Its full text: “The proposed Constitutional Amendment clarifies that certain standards in the Maryland Constitution apply only to districts used to elect members of the General Assembly; authorizes the General Assembly to grant original jurisdiction to the Supreme Court of Maryland to review the congressional districting plan of the State; and requires the criteria for boundaries of congressional districts to be determined by applicable federal laws.”
One detail is worth noting without drawing a legal conclusion from it: Maryland’s two other statewide constitutional amendments on this year’s ballot — Question 1, on state employee arbitration, and Question 2, on judicial disability commission appointments — both include separate explanatory paragraphs describing what a “For” vote and an “Against” vote each specifically mean. Question 3 does not; it states the amendment’s effect once and then simply offers “For the Constitutional Amendment” and “Against the Constitutional Amendment” as the only options, with no separate plain-language explanation of what each vote accomplishes.
Question 3 does not.
Whether that difference amounts to the “insufficient” ballot language the Dorchester suit alleges is a legal question this outlet isn’t positioned to resolve — but the formatting difference itself is real and checkable against the state’s own published questions.
Sources: Dan Belson, The Daily Record, “MD redistricting case has been sealed for days; Republicans add another,” Aug. 11, 2026; Maryland State Board of Elections, “Ballot Questions for the November 3, 2026 Election,” accessed Aug. 2026; Circuit Court for Dorchester County case docket, Wheatley v. Maryland State Board of Elections, Case No. C-09-CV-26-000285, accessed Aug. 2026; “Here’s who is running for office in Dorchester County this year,” Star Democrat, Feb. 27, 2026; MDBayNews prior reporting on the original Anne Arundel County lawsuit.
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