Judge blocks Democrats’ redistricting push in Maryland

A Maryland judge Wednesday blocked an effort that would have proposed a constitutional amendment to redraw the state’s congressional districts to residents, marking another setback for Democratic redistricting efforts.

Judge Robert Thompson ruled against House Bill 2100 — signed into law by Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) on Aug. 5 — calling the wording in parts of the proposed ballot question “intentionally misleading, and this should disqualify the ballot question as currently written.”

“The court has no choice but to enjoin the board of elections from including ballot Question 3 on the general election ballot for November 3, 2026,” Thompson wrote.

H.B. 2100 would have asked voters in the Old Line State about a proposed constitutional amendment that “clarifies … standards” around congressional redistricting.

The bill would require each congressional legislative district to be “given to natural boundaries and the boundaries of political subdivisions.”

The ballot measure was criticized when it passed with a supermajority by minority GOP lawmakers in the state. They said at the time H.B. 2100 attempted to work around a 2022 ruling that struck down another Democratic redistricting plan.

The Maryland Freedom Caucus — a conservative group that filed one of the two lawsuits against the bill — celebrated the decision on social media Wednesday .

“Today the court made clear that three-fifths of the vote doesn’t buy you an exemption from the rules you wrote yourself. Maryland doesn’t answer to kings, and it doesn’t answer to a legislature that thinks it’s one,” state Del. Matt Morgan (R) said.

The proposal from Maryland is part of a broader fight across the country to net seats in Congress as midterms approach.

Democrats need to win fewer than five seats this fall to flip the GOP’s slim hold on the upper chamber, raising the stakes for redistricting moves that traditionally happen just once a decade after the census.

Thompson stated that the injunction is pending the state’s immediate appeal to the Supreme Court of Maryland. Democrats currently control seven of Maryland’s eight congressional seats.