House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries suggested Wednesday that Maryland is preparing to redraw its congressional maps, despite recent comments from the state’s Democratic leaders indicating the effort faces long odds.
“It’s my expectation, based on my conversations with Gov. Moore [and] leadership in the Maryland General Assembly … that the state of Maryland knows what the stakes are, understands the assignment and, as we are seeing in multiple other states beginning with California, will respond aggressively and appropriately in short order,” Jeffries said at a press conference at the Capitol.
Jeffries’ comments come just days after Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson sent a three-page letter Tuesday to dozens of lawmakers rejecting the party’s effort to redistrict in the state.
“Despite deeply shared frustrations about the state of our country, mid-cycle redistricting for Maryland presents a reality where the legal risks are too high,” Ferguson wrote. “The timeline for action is dangerous, the downside risk to Democrats is catastrophic, and the certainty of our existing map would be undermined.”
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Democratic Maryland Gov. Wes Moore told Politico in September that he was ready to start the redistricting process. State House Speaker Adrienne Jones also signaled she was eager to launch a redistricting effort.
Talk of Maryland wading into the redistricting race was prompted by a polling memo commissioned by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee last week that reported a majority of Maryland voters support redrawing congressional districts.
“These results suggest that the Democratic base will respond extremely positively to action from the state legislature on redistricting — and that, if public opinion in Maryland follows California’s trajectory, voters outside the Democratic base are likely to follow,” Change Research’s Ben Greenfield and Matt Booker write in the memo, first reported by Politico.
Over the last few months, the country has undergone a nationwide tit-for-tat redistricting race that kicked off when Texas Republicans launched their effort in June.
The decision to redraw congressional districts usually occurs once every 10 years following the census.
Republicans have drawn an expected seven red-leaning seats in three states, including five in Texas, one in Missouri and one in North Carolina. In response, Democrats in California and Virginia, are working to respond with new maps of their own, which could together yield the same number of seats for the party.
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