Redistricting Analysis

You probably are aware that Maryland is attempting to pass with your vote a constitutional change to allow redistricting and this follows other states like California and Texas passing originally unscheduled redistricting changes. Virginia Tech's political professor Nicholas Goddard joins us now with more on this. It's good to see you. I'm going to read through what some say is a confusing question three in just a minute. But I want to get your take first of all. On the redistricting and if Maryland falls in line with some of these other states where this has been on the ballot. Well, sure. So there have been several states, several large states, including California, Texas, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, that have all redrawn their maps within the last year or so to try to gain an advantage for the party that controls their state government. Maryland already has a map in which Democrats win seven of the eight congressional districts. Of course, Democrats control the state government in Maryland. What this referendum is likely to do is is make it much easier. For the legislature to draw a map in which Democrats will be in all eight seats. So I want to read through this, Nicholas, because I think a lot of voters are confused in Maryland. This is the way that it will appear on the ballot. And I'll read this verbatim. For the purpose of clarifying that certain requirements apply only to districts for the election of members of the Senate of Maryland and the House of Delegates, authorizing the General Assembly to grant original jurisdiction to the Supreme Court of Maryland to review the congressional redistricting plan of the state, and providing that nothing in the Maryland Constitution provides applicable criteria for the boundaries of a congressional districting plan. That's the question voters are going to have to decide. Will they be able to figure that out? Yeah, so this is pretty confusing as it's worded. The context here is that the Maryland legislature tried to draw a map in which Democrats would win all eight congressional districts, but this map was overturned by the Maryland State Supreme Court. And so what this referendum is trying to do is to To disempower the court to review a congressional map if the legislature tries to pass it again. So it's changing the jurisdiction. It's basically changing the standards under which the court can consider a map, trying to prevent the court from overturning a democratic gerrymander that might happen in the near future. So that's why it's worded in such a confusing way. It is not directly implementing a new congressional map. It is merely changing how the court can respond if the legislature I know the Supreme Court in Maryland was the one that chose this particular language, but what stops them from simply saying, do you as a voter give the Maryland legislature the right to redraw the maps? So the Maryland legislature already has the right to redraw the map. It's just that they have to follow certain principles, certain guidelines, including compactness and keeping certain areas together. Um, and this would change the criteria that the court can judge the map under. So it is a little bit more complicated. Ultimately, the effect is likely to be similar. Um, but the way in which this changes the law is not that it allows the legislature to redraw the map. It changes how the court can review the map. Again, this is why I think this is so confusingly worded. Yeah, I think so too. So the bottom line is for a Maryland voter who's watching right now, uh, If they vote yes to the ballot question, what exactly are they voting for? A yes vote would probably result in Maryland drawing a congressional map in which all the seats were won by Democrats. A no vote would probably mean that the congressional map would stay the same and seven of the seats would be held by Democrats and one would likely be held by a Republican going forward in the next couple election cycles. So a yes vote is a vote for a Democratic gerrymander. We need to just replay that for all the voters who are getting ready to head out to the polls so they can easily understand it. You made it so much more clear, I think, than the ballot language itself. Nicholas Getter joining us this morning from down at Virginia Tech. Thank you very much for breaking that down. Much appreciated. Thank you. All right. You're very welcome, Marissa.