Even though it is the Democrat’s who are getting hit here, this is the right thing to do. A partisan gerrymander is wrong whomever it may favor.
Texas goes first. Nobody cut to the front of this line out of any sense of morality and fairness. Texas, you are nonpartisan redistricting’s lead off batter. Batter up!
Some walk-up music, for ya:
This assumes Hogan’s panel will be fair, which I doubt. He’s got no reason to be moderate now that he’s in his second and final term as governor.
So I might be a little slow here but how does one redraw the boundaries of just one district? Shouldn’t all the districts be looked at?
If the first three members of the commission are any sign, the fix will be in.
Retired Judge Alexander Williams, a registered Democrat; Walter Olson, a
senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a registered Republican; and
Ashley Oleson, an unaffiliated voter.
So one retired judge who may or may not have registered as a democrat for electoral purposes (yes, they have partisan judicial elections). One hard-right republican activist who will have access to however much computing power and mapmaking expertise he wants, and one “unaffiliated” voter whose history he knows but we don’t.
With enough public scrutiny this could still produce decent results.
But the other main result is that the case doesn’t reach the supreme court, so there’s no conflict that would have pitted a republican-leaning case against democratic-leaning ones.
I disagree. The time for fairness has ended. The planet depends on getting Republican’ts and Neoliberal Democrats out of power permanently . If that means partisan gerrymanders, so be it. Besides, the Republican’ts are owed a taste of their own, bitter medicine…
Thanks for that!
I’m glad they’re fixing this, gerrymandering regardless who does it, is wrong and “leaders” who screw with people’s right to vote should be dealt with harshly. However…
That Democrat-drawn redistricting in 2011 has been cited by critics as a major reason former Democratic Rep. John Delaney was able to oust 10-term Republican Roscoe Bartlett in 2012.
Critics aren’t the same as experts. Lets stop citing critics (or non-critics) and start citing experts.
This is great news for Marylanders and the country. The Old Line State gets fairness and the red states get an example to emulate.
Insert most states’ names here. And yeah, Texas is at the front of the line for needing the fix, but probably the last to do it.
It’s not clear to me that Hogan’s plan removes the case from court. I’d also like to know if he has the power to unilaterally appoint such a commission and make its findings binding. Any MD election/constitutional law experts out there?
In principle, I support keeping the legislatures out of redistricting, and this was an especially bad gerrymander. And having it resolved fairly only puts the spotlight more strongly on the real villianry in places like TX, WI, and NC - PA was resolved, but could use an independent commission as a long term solution.
But in any case, Democrats need a solid platform and state-by-state action plans going into the 2020 elections, ahead of the next census…
None of this surprises me. All of the Dems who voted for Hogan b/c it made them feel “bipartisan” or b/c they “like him” or think “he’s doing a good job” or they wouldn’t vote for Jealous b/c he is black…this is on you.
(yes, and you too, white Dem women who refused to support Dems b/c of Brett Kavanaugh…b/c they were afraid of their husbands’ being accused)
None of this is surprising. (Hogan’s behavior)
Hogan is Koch backed & approved.
I’m having a little trouble seeing their point here. The results of the sixth district were 142,656 to 97,330, which is a blowout by any standard. In fact, Maryland’s sixth was the closest election in that state, but the Dems won in every district but the first. Since Maryland’s sixth district is on the other side of the state from the first, how could they redraw the map to have more Republicans in the sixth district without borrowing them from Pennsylvania?
How is this gerrymandering?
The Democratic party gave lackluster support to Ben Jealous…their candidate (Rushern Baker) didn’t win the primary, so many withheld support (financial & other).
Jealous also didn’t have a great social media plan or strategy to get out there and define himself before Hogan & the Kochs did…
I was frustrated that with his Hollywood connections he didn’t even put out any cool campaign ads (on social media) or sell T shirts & other things to raise money…
This is another case of pouting Dems…and now look at the first of many negative results for Maryland. Grrrrr.
The commission can draw any map it wants. The redistricting process is set by the Maryland Constitution, and the Governor’s map is only a starting point.
I doubt that the Federal courts will uphold this order on appeal, because they’re afraid to make the district map a matter of Federal law except based on a constitutional objection. Can the Supreme Court decide that Maryland’s map is unconstitutional because it has one district that is insufficiently compact, but ignore districts in other states that were drawn to pack minority voters into as few districts as possible? Brian Frosh’s defense of the law as it stands is an effort to get the decision up through the appeals courts to set a precedent – if they overrule the Maryland map, that’s fine, as long as they overrule maps in all the other states. Hogan is pushing this supposedly nonpartisan process to get one more red district for his party, without risking a court ruling that will take a dozen in other states.
That doesn’t mean he is wrong in this case.
I voted against this when it came up as a referendum. This district takes in the richest part of Montgomery Counrty and all of Western Maryland, our slice of Appalachia. This got rid of Republican Roscoe Bartlett, a real goober. Good to see him go but the whole redistricring was stinky. For example, this the 3rd district:
Where would I find this map? And, if that doesn’t look like a Rorshach test, I dunno what does?
I believe any proposed redistricting has to be approved by the Maryland House and Senate, and Democrats hold supermajorities in both bodies that will enable them to stop any changes they do not support.