BREAKING: Maryland's Senate President Bill Ferguson REJECTS calls to redistrict in a letter to other lawmakers

[In It to Win It]

Electoral Eagle🎃
@ElectoralEagle

BREAKING:: Maryland's Senate President Bill Ferguson REJECTS calls to redistrict in a letter to other lawmakers, for a few reasons🧵

Link to tweet

NEW: Maryland’s Democratic Senate President announces that the Senate will not advance a plan to eliminate the state’s sole Republican congressional seat through redistricting, saying the risk of a redraw is too high for the state and “not worth pursuing.”

— Democracy Docket (@democracydocket.com) 2025-10-29T15:20:31.606805746Z

[BannonsLiver]

1. Hoo boy.

This era is definitely separating the wheat from the chaff.

On edit: Apparently Gov Moore disagrees. Looks like another entry for the this is why we lose file.

Link to tweet

?s=46

[FBaggins]

3. Nope... he just knows his state better than those calling for new lines do

They just drew aggressive new lines turning MD6 blue by cutting support in some neighboring areas. MD is now 7-1 blue in the House.

The problem is that MD1 is quite red and is mostly eastern shore - which is only geographically connected to the rest of the state through multiple red counties before you get to Baltimore (where we have a surplus of voters).

But the rules in MD require keeping counties whole where possible and the neighboring MD2 already lost strength to MD6. They would have to create districts that were not contiguous unless a court allowed them to count the Chesapeake Bay as part of the district (unlikely) - and both of those districts would now be competitive enough to be at risk in tough years

[BannonsLiver]

4. Nope.

Like I said, wheat from the chaff.

[FBaggins]

5. Compelling point

All that data is tough to rebut

[EdmondDantes_]

6. And even if they went through redistricting, it's a gain of 1

Not really worth a fight in the larger scheme of things.

[In It to Win It]

9. If I recall correctly, Missouri's new map was a gain of 1. Their map went from 6R-2D to 7R-1D

Admittedly, I'm not all that familiar with Maryland, but in the larger scheme, every gain counts.

[EdmondDantes_]

12. Not if it would violate the state law and open it up to being reviewed.

It would be a lot of effort for a tiny potential gain and undercuts the argument that gerrymandering is bad and general feelings that the parties are the same if both are willing to do the same things. But also given it's already 6-1, and the Senate vote in Maryland was 55/43, seems like we already gerrymandered the state pretty significantly. I'm really not interested in being the same as the Republicans and trying to entirely shut out the other party. It just leads to an ever increasing cycle. We filibustered their judicial nominees, they filibustered ours, so we took out the filibuster for judges below the Supreme Court, then they took the filibuster for those nominees. An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.

[In It to Win It]

13. "Not if it would violate the state law and open it up to being reviewed."... Ummm, I'm willing to test that out

Granted, Democratic-appointed or elected judges tend not to be political hacks, but I'd be willing to test that out in general, not specifically in Maryland but anywhere.

[Deep State Witch]

10. Here is the Map

MD-1 is the district in question. It's mostly the Eastern Shore and NE Maryland near the PA and DE border. Lots of farms there. The ES is mostly agricultural. They had a really good candidate in the 2022 cycle, Heather Mizeur. She had a lot of statewide support, but still lost to Andy Harris. The ES wasn't ready to vote for a self-described "Lesbian Herb Farmer."

https://planning.maryland.gov/Redistricting/Pages/2020/congDist.aspx

Maryland was mandated to create a majority-minority district several years ago. That's MD-4, where I live.

Don't get me wrong - I'm all for getting rid of Andy Harris. He was a scumbag before MAGA, and jumped on that train. But he is bought and paid for by Big Ag. I just don't want it to be at the expense of getting a new Republican into office in a different part of MD.

[FBaggins]

11. Thanks! Yes - the ES is solidly red

with maybe one purple county as an exception.

I just can’t see a way to get enough blue into there without endangering more than we gain. And that’s before the question of whether it’s even possible within their redistricting rules.

Gerrymandering almost necessarily “packs” your opponent into a limited number of districts. Cracking that last one is tough without a more homogeneously distributed majority (like some of the New England states). MD’s ES is not only too red… but the geography makes it hard to connect a new district to the surplus of blue voters

[Deep State Witch]

2. Real Talk From A Maryland Resident

We're already gerrymandered to protect Democrats in MD-6 (Western MD) and MD-5 (Southern MD). To shrink MD-1 (NE Maryland and Eastern Shore) they would have to move things to the east. That would have the potential to open up 5 and 6, which are in more conservative areas, to electing Republicans.

Of course, if they want to put us in MD-8 (Raskin) rather than MD-4 (Ivey), I'm down for that.

https://planning.maryland.gov/Redistricting/Pages/2020/congDist.aspx

[SSJVegeta]

8. Yeah. More gerrymandering could easily turn into a dummymander in the wrong environment

I just dont think this will be one of those environments...

[SSJVegeta]

7. He has a good instinct but in a midterm as the opposition it could very well be worth the gamble.