A Maryland judge on Wednesday blocked a congressional redistricting amendment from appearing on the ballot this November, after state lawmakers voted to add the referendum during a special legislative session this summer.
Maryland joined a wave of Democratic states that launched redistricting efforts in reaction to President Donald Trump’s push for Republicans to flip additional House seats ahead of the midterms. The state’s new map, which would favor Democrats in all eight House districts, would not go into effect until at least 2028.
The Oversight Project, a conservative advocacy group, filed a lawsuit opposing the redistricting effort after Democrats in the state legislature passed an amendment this month to get the measure on the ballot. Democrats appealed the judge’s decision to the Maryland Supreme Court on Wednesday afternoon, a spokesperson for Gov. Wes Moore confirmed to NOTUS.
During a July special legislative session, Maryland lawmakers passed a measure that would allow the state to pursue a new redistricting map, clarify the requirements for congressional district boundaries and give the state Supreme Court the sole authority to hear these cases first before the traditional lower-court appeals process.
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Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Robert J. Thompson concluded that the ballot measure is flawed because it would pose multiple redistricting questions to voters.
“The question itself is defective because not only does it ostensibly intend to ‘clarify’ the application of compactness requirements, but it also seeks to confer original jurisdiction over congressional redistricting cases to the Supreme Court of Maryland,” Thompson wrote, adding that the state’s constitution requires a referendum to pose questions about a single issue.
Maryland Democrats’ court loss is another example of a court striking down redistricting efforts from blue states this year. In neighboring Virginia, the state Supreme Court invalidated a similar ballot measure, largely on procedural grounds.
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