Maryland lawmakers passed a constitutional amendment on Tuesday that would make it easier for the legislature to redraw the state’s congressional map and shift the one Republican-held House seat to Democrats in the 2028 elections.
Democrats hold seven of the state’s eight congressional seats, and they tried to join a redistricting wave over the last year as the two parties jockeyed for control of the House in the next Congress.
But a gerrymandered map that was approved by the House of Delegates in February and would have all but locked up that eighth congressional seat couldn’t clear the Democratic-controlled State Senate. Bill Ferguson, the senate president, had resisted the redistricting push, arguing that drawing a new map was too risky, given that a state judge ruled in 2022 that an attempt had violated the Maryland Constitution.
If Maryland had adopted this year’s map, the state would have joined California, Missouri and other states in crafting new districts for the 2026 midterms. This unusual burst of redistricting, which usually occurs early each decade after the results of the U.S. census, was set in motion by President Trump in early 2025, when he urged Texas politicians to redraw the state’s congressional map in a bid to ensure his party retained control of the U.S. House. Republicans currently hold a slim majority.
But despite intense pressure from some Maryland Democratic leaders, the regular legislative session ended in April without the House’s new map coming up for a vote in the State Senate.
Then, after the Supreme Court’s decision in May gutting the Voting Rights Act, Mr. Ferguson said the state “must respond as the ground shifts under us.” Two months later, state Democratic leaders announced that the legislature would reconvene for a special session to consider an amendment putting lawmakers on stronger legal footing for redistricting.
The amendment that passed on Tuesday will go before voters in November. It would establish that congressional districts are not subject to the same constitutional requirements as state legislative districts, namely that they be compact, and that they consider natural boundaries and city and county lines. The judge who struck down the redistricting attempt in 2022 had cited those requirements in her decision.
While some Democrats grumbled that the monthslong dispute about process kept Maryland from adopting a new map in time for this year’s midterms, the amendment would clear the way for new districts heading into 2028. Multiple states, including New York and Mississippi, have already started exploring the process of redistricting for the next cycle.
In a statement, the House minority leader, Jason Buckel, a Republican, said that “partisan gerrymandering is wrong, when Republicans or Democrats engage in it.”
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