On 1/24/19 this information was delivered to members of the Maryland General Assembly to help keep them informed on the strides being made across the country in redistricting reform, and ask them to act now! Feel free to share this information with your legislator, friends, neighbors, and anyone you can educate about the need for Fair Maps in Maryland!

The clock is ticking. Following the 2020 census the Maryland General Assembly must approve new legislative and Congressional election districts.    Will they be drawn in a fair and transparent manner or will Maryland continue to be one of the most gerrymandered states in the nation?  Let's work together to find a better way to do redistricting.

“Voters are stripping partisan redistricting power from politicians in anti-gerrymandering efforts”

November 7, 2018 (Key Excerpts) -  “Voters in three states overwhelmingly chose to overhaul how legislative and congressional districts are drawn, stripping a traditionally partisan exercise from politicians while aiming to create a more level playing field based instead on geography and demographics. Colorado and Michigan will create independent commissions to decide the boundaries of congressional and legislative districts after the 2020 Census. The measures were intended to reduce the likelihood of any political party wielding its power to decide where election boundaries should be drawn — otherwise known as gerrymandering, or creating districts that will more likely lead to that party retaining political control.”

“And on Wednesday, federal judges threw out Maryland’s current congressional map, ordering the state to redraw its lines for future elections. Officials have until March to submit a redistricting plan.”

“‘In a night where Democrats take the House and Republicans push the Senate deeper red, it is amazing that everyone could agree on one thing: We all hate gerrymandering,’ said David Daley, a senior fellow for the nonpartisan group FairVote and author of a book on gerrymandering.”

“‘There is a structural issue that is silently corroding our democracy, and we all have this sense that something is broken, something isn’t working. And in many ways the underlying issue is that these district lines have gotten twisted in such a way that made our politics more extreme.’ In Pennsylvania, the state Supreme Court ruled that a congressional map drawn by Republican legislators in 2011 was ‘clearly, plainly, and palpably’ a partisan gerrymander. The court drew its own map with the help of an independent redistricting expert, and that map was used Tuesday. The U.S. Supreme Court has been reluctant to wade into the issue of gerrymandering. In June, it skirted the issue of whether redrawing districts in partisan ways is unconstitutional, leaving a Republican-drawn map in Wisconsin and one made by Democrats in Maryland intact for Election Day.”

By: Katie Zezima and Emily Wax-Thibodeaux

To read the full article visit: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/voters-are-stripping-partisan-redistricting-power-from-politicians-in-anti-gerrymandering-efforts/2018/11/07/2a239a5e-e1d9-11e8-b759-3d88a5ce9e19_story.html?utm_term=.821fd476f3d5

“How the midterms altered the 2020 redistricting landscape” 

November 7th, 2018 - On Tuesday night Democrats set themselves up for greater control over the 2020 congressional redistricting process after making gains in state legislatures and governor’s mansions across the country. But Republicans remain well-positioned to control redistricting for a plurality of U.S. House seats, underscoring Democrats' uphill battle in digging out of GOP gerrymanders put in place after the last census. In most states, redistricting is handled through the regular legislative process, with legislatures working to draw maps that are signed into law by governors. In these states, whoever controls the state government controls the redistricting process. Partisan lawmakers often draw districts in a way to disadvantage the opposing party, a process known as gerrymandering.

According to state election results compiled by Ballotpedia and Daily Kos’s Stephen Wolf and analyzed by The Washington Post, if redistricting were to occur tomorrow, Republicans would have unified control over the boundaries of 179 House districts, down from 204 before the election. That decrease is due in large part to the loss of governor’s mansions in Wisconsin and Michigan. For simplicity’s sake, this analysis assumes that Republican Brian Kemp is declared the winner of the Georgia governor’s race, keeping that state under unified Republican control. It also assumes the passage of a ballot measure to create an independent redistricting commission in Utah, which is leading by a narrow margin.

Democrats, meanwhile, now have complete control over the boundaries of 76 seats, up threefold from just 24 before the election. The lion’s share of that shift is due to New York state, where Democrats took control of the state Senate for the first time since 2010, putting themselves in control of the state’s 27 seats in Congress. Democrats also won unitary control of state governments in Nevada and New Mexico. Those partisan shifts mean that the number of seats under split control, where both parties have a say in the redistricting process, dropped sharply to 60 following the election. The other significant shift was an increase in seats that will be drawn by independent commissions. Voters in Michigan and Colorado approved ballot measures creating such commissions. Voters in Utah appear to be poised to do the same, although the count remains close and the final result has not yet been called.

Former U.S. attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr., who leads the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said on Twitter that he was “proud of our work that resulted in reform candidate victories, creation of independent commissions and making state legislatures more responsive to the people.” The NDRC had targeted elections in a number of states with an eye toward reducing Republican majorities in state legislatures. The 2020 election will be voters' last chance to alter the compositions of their state governments before the redistricting that will happen in 2021.

By: Christopher Ingraham

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/11/07/how-midterms-altered-redistricting-landscape/