By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews
Gov. Wes Moore spent Thursday in Washington predicting Marylanders will vote overwhelmingly to approve Question 3 this November. Speaking at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s annual legislative conference, Moore framed the ballot question as a fight over whether Donald Trump gets to “determine what our democracy looks like.”
That is one way to describe a measure that was written and passed over the course of a special session held Aug. 3-5, got blocked by two separate judges, and only survived after Maryland’s own Supreme Court ruled that part of its language was misleading and ordered it rewritten days before ballots went to print. Here is what voters are actually being asked to decide, and why the case for voting no is stronger than the governor’s applause line suggests.
Why this amendment exists
Question 3 traces back to a March 2022 ruling out of Anne Arundel County, where a circuit judge struck down Maryland’s congressional map for that decade, finding it violated the compactness and contiguity requirements written into the state constitution for legislative districts, plus Articles 7, 24 and 40 of Maryland’s Declaration of Rights. That ruling was not binding precedent, but it was enough to worry legislative leaders. Senate President Bill Ferguson shelved a new congressional map the House had approved earlier this year rather than risk another such ruling.
House Bill 2100 is Annapolis’ answer to that legal exposure. Rather than simply reversing the 2022 compactness ruling, it writes into the Constitution that nothing in Article III or elsewhere in the Maryland Constitution, including the Declaration of Rights, provides applicable criteria for congressional district boundaries.
“Rather than simply reversing the 2022 compactness ruling, it writes into the Constitution that nothing in Article III or elsewhere in the Maryland Constitution, including the Declaration of Rights, provides applicable criteria for congressional district boundaries.”
What Question 3 actually does
Question 3 is a constitutional amendment, not a new map. If it passes, it would establish that nothing in the Maryland Constitution, including the Declaration of Rights, supplies criteria for congressional district boundaries. State Senate and House of Delegates districts would keep operating under the existing standards. Congressional maps would not.
That is a broader change than a simple geography fix. In a dissent from the court’s Sept. 3 order, Justice Steven Gould, joined by Senior Justice Glenn Harrell, warned that the amendment would leave the Declaration of Rights with no criteria against which a congressional map could be measured, stripping Marylanders of the ability to challenge a map drawn to disadvantage a religious minority or punish political expression.
“That is a broader change than a simple geography fix.”
The amendment would also authorize, though not automatically grant, the General Assembly to give the Maryland Supreme Court original jurisdiction over future lawsuits challenging congressional maps. Recent Maryland redistricting challenges, including this year’s, have started in circuit court.
Passing Question 3 would not redraw a single district this year. It clears a legal obstacle. An actual map would still require a separate act of the General Assembly, which could then be taken up before the 2028 elections.
“Question 3 is a constitutional amendment, not a new map.”
A process even Democrats admit was rushed
The special session convened Aug. 3, and both chambers gave final passage to House Bill 2100 the next night. Moore signed it Aug. 5. It came after months of internal Democratic disagreement over whether to move at all; Ferguson had initially resisted redrawing the map, a standoff serious enough that Moore reportedly pulled a campaign endorsement from Ferguson before the two eventually patched things up.
Once the bill passed, two circuit court judges, one in Anne Arundel County and one in Dorchester County, separately ruled that Question 3 could not appear on the ballot, though both injunctions were stayed pending appeal. The Anne Arundel judge found lawmakers had used intentionally misleading wording, describing the amendment as merely “clarifying” existing standards when it would actually remove them.
“The Maryland Supreme Court reversed both rulings on Sept. 3, but only after agreeing that part of the ballot language was misleading and violated due process.”
The Maryland Supreme Court reversed both rulings on Sept. 3, but only after agreeing that part of the ballot language, a clause claiming the amendment “requires the criteria for boundaries of congressional districts to be determined by applicable federal laws,” was misleading and violated due process. The justices ordered election officials to replace it with different language pulled from the bill’s own purpose paragraph, just as the state board of elections was preparing to print ballots.
Ferguson has since acknowledged as much publicly. “There is no doubt that we did rush in some ways in order to get it on the ballot for the 2026 election,” he told a Baltimore television reporter, adding that lawmakers had to work on a faster timeline than would be ideal.
Republican critics went further during the run-up to the special session. State Sen. Bryan Simonaire, R-Anne Arundel, called the plan “a direct assault on the checks and balances meant to protect you from government overreach” in campaign messaging, and accused Annapolis Democrats of spending taxpayer money to fund what he described as a partisan power grab.
A constitutional amendment that needed its own author to admit the rush, and needed the state’s highest court to rewrite its wording days before printing, is not the kind of measure voters should wave through on trust.
“Passing Question 3 would not redraw a single district this year. It clears a legal obstacle.”
The Andy Harris angle
Supporters insist Question 3 is not really about any one congressman. House Majority Leader David Moon made that argument directly on the floor during the special session debate, telling colleagues, “It’s not about Andy Harris.” That framing gets harder to sustain given who actually stands to lose a seat if Democrats act on the power Question 3 would hand them.
Maryland Democrats already hold seven of the state’s eight U.S. House seats. The only Republican is Rep. Andy Harris, who represents the Eastern Shore-based 1st District and chairs the House Freedom Caucus in Washington. It is not a marginal district. Harris has held it comfortably for eight terms, and outlets covering the fight have described it as a safely Republican, deep-red seat. A 2028 map drawn without today’s constitutional restraints could give Maryland an 8-0 Democratic delegation, eliminating the state’s only Republican-held congressional seat entirely.
Harris has described the effort in blunt terms. Democrats, he said, know their only path now is to “defeat me, attempt to defeat me, on the floor of the Maryland General Assembly,” rather than at the ballot box.
Why the case for voting no holds up
- The state’s own Supreme Court found the ballot language misleading. Voters do not usually get a do-over on a constitutional amendment. Here, justices already flagged one piece of deception in the drafting and had to order it fixed before ballots printed. That should raise, not lower, the bar for trusting the rest of the bill’s framing.
- It’s a blank check, not a fix. Question 3 does not include a map, an independent commission, or a new set of criteria for congressional lines. It removes the existing constitutional standards and leaves the General Assembly free to draw whatever boundaries the majority party wants, with no fairness test left to challenge them against.
- The political consequences are concentrated on one seat. The amendment itself names no district and no member of Congress. But Democrats hold seven of eight House seats already, and the only one left, Harris’ 1st District, is the one a future map would be free to redraw without today’s constitutional guardrails. Voters are entitled to notice that.
- It bundles in a separate jurisdictional change. The same amendment that strips congressional maps of constitutional criteria also authorizes the legislature to hand the state Supreme Court original jurisdiction over future map lawsuits, a structural change unrelated to the fairness standards it claims to address.
- Lawmakers admit they were racing the clock. A ballot rewrite ordered days before printing, plus a sitting Senate president publicly conceding the process was rushed, are not signs of a measure built to last past this election cycle.
What to Watch
The Oversight Project, the conservative group that brought the original Anne Arundel County challenge, remains active alongside the Maryland Freedom Caucus after the Supreme Court ruling. Watch for whether they or other Republican groups mount a public education push explaining what a “yes” vote actually authorizes, since the court-ordered rewrite of the ballot language will be many voters’ first real exposure to the issue. Watch also for how aggressively Moore and allied groups campaign for passage between now and November, given the governor’s stated confidence that voters will approve it.
Sources: Maryland Supreme Court per curiam order and Justice Steven Gould’s dissent, joined by Senior Justice Glenn Harrell, Sept. 3, 2026, consolidated Question 3 ballot challenges, Nos. 21 and 22, September Term 2026 (mdcourts.gov); Maryland Matters’ reporting on the Aug. 3-5 special session, the Sept. 3 ruling and Gould’s dissent, and the Aug. 28 Dorchester County ruling by Judge S. James Sarbanes; WTOP’s Sept. 3 coverage of the Supreme Court hearing; Capital News Service reporting by Charlotte Ormond for Maryland Matters, “Moore convinced Marylanders will check ‘yes’ on redistricting ballot question,” Sept. 18, 2026; WJLA’s reporting on House Bill 2100’s passage and signing; Democracy Docket and WYPR reporting on the August circuit court rulings blocking the amendment; FOX45/WBFF’s interview with Senate President Bill Ferguson; The Baltimore Banner’s reporting on the special session debate and Rep. Andy Harris; Fox News Digital’s interview with Harris; and the Maryland General Assembly’s official member directory, used to verify the current titles of Sen. Bryan Simonaire, House Majority Leader David Moon, Senate President Bill Ferguson and Rep. Andy Harris.
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