A judge just blocked Maryland Democrats from putting their redistricting amendment on the November ballot. According to Conservative Brief, Anne Arundel County Circuit Court Judge Robert J. Thompson ruled the Maryland State Board of Elections cannot place the proposed question before voters this fall. The ruling is a major win for Republicans who argued the whole thing was a procedural dumpster fire.
Here's where it gets chef's kiss levels of absurd. Earlier this year, Maryland's legislature passed a law requiring ballot referendums to be written in plain language, certified by July 1, and given a 15-day public comment period. Then in August, they passed the redistricting amendment, blew right past their own July deadline, and just added language exempting themselves from the rules they literally just created. The judge was not impressed by the "rules for thee but not for me" approach.
The whole fight centers on House Bill 2100, which would clarify that state constitutional requirements for compact, contiguous districts only apply to state legislative maps, not congressional ones. Republicans say this is a thinly veiled setup to redraw congressional lines and wipe out Rep. Andy Harris, the lone Republican in Maryland's eight-member House delegation. Democrats currently hold seven of eight seats, but apparently seven out of eight isn't enough.
The legal battle is far from over since the state can appeal, and a separate lawsuit is still pending in Dorchester County. Meanwhile, election officials are sweating over an Aug. 31 deadline to certify roughly 1,200 ballot configurations. Nothing says good governance quite like writing rules, ignoring them a few months later, getting caught, and then scrambling to fix it all before the printer runs out of ink.
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