ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Representative Jamie Raskin (D), who represents the Fifth District in Maryland, is asking state senators to redraw the congressional lines.
In a letter to members of the Maryland General Assembly, dated Monday, February 9, he argues in favor of the push to redistrict.
"So long as the U.S. Supreme Court approves the mid-decade extreme partisan gerrymanders, we cannot unilaterally disarm and surrender," writes Raskin. "California voters did not change their map because they stopped believing in non-partisan redistricting—they voted to change their map as an emergency act of political self-defense against GOP-run Legislatures in Texas, Missouri, Ohio, North Carolina and Florida and elsewhere, who had broken and continue to break, all norms of American politics with shocking mid-decade pro-Republican gerrymanders."
A bill to redistrict has already passed the House of Delegates, 99-37.
You can take a look at the current districts compared to the proposed districts in the map below.
While Governor Moore has also pushed for the redistricting, Senate President Bill Ferguson has been opposed.
"This is not August and September, with months of litigation on the horizon," Ferguson said on Tuesday. "I appreciate his [Raskin's] legal analysis. I think the challenge is, it's February... all of the legal analysis points toward a court getting involved and making a decision on its own, as opposed to relying on the legislature."
RELATED: Senate President stands firm on redistricting as senator stages protest
Senator Arthur Ellis, a Democrat representing a district in Charles County, staged a protest last week, calling on the Senate to move forward with redistricting.
Ferguson held firm, "In this moment in time, we have to do whatever it takes to ensure that we do not go backwards, and we cannot pass a map that leads to ultimately a 6-2 result."
On Tuesday, Ellis told WMAR-2 News, "Conversations have started on a vote of no confidence," though he would not say who has been involved in those conversations.
"I respect every member's opinion," Ferguson said. "This is a democracy, and in democracies, sometimes people don't agree on a policy outcome."
He added that "a majority of his democratic colleagues" agreed that they can't afford to go ahead with redistricting and risk "going backwards."
"I keep hearing from colleagues and friends in the Maryland Senate that they would like to support the revised 2026 map, but they are afraid of what they have heard might happen in the U.S. Supreme Court or in the Maryland Supreme Court, especially because of Circuit Court Judge Lynne Battaglia's opinion issued in March 2022," writes Raskin in his letter. "These colleagues are anxious over very little... The Maryland Supreme Court's decision on state redistricting in August 2022 rejected the reasoning of Judge Battaglia's circuit court opinion, which was non-precedential to begin with."
You can read Rep. Raskin's full letter here.
