January 5, 2012
In frigid temperatures amongst a small crowd outside Frederick City Hall, state Senator David Brinkley, a man who has represented Western Maryland for over 16 years, announced his candidacy for Maryland’s 6th Congressional District Wednesday afternoon. More quietly, two more Democrats officially filed their candidacies in the race for the Democratic nomination at the Board of Elections in Annapolis Wednesday -- commercial banker John Delaney of Potomac and attorney Charles Bailey of Sharpsburg in Washington County. [...more]
December 29, 2011
Maryland officials constantly tout the state’s top schools and most educated workforce, but it may have a more dubious distinction – the least compact and most gerrymandered congressional districts in the nation. [...more]
December 27, 2011
The African-American witnesses at Thursday’s hearing on the proposed legislative redistricting map consistently made the case that there should have been 14 predominately black Senate districts out of 47, not the 12 proposed.
But the decision by a three-judge federal court the next day on the congressional districts maps undermined some of these arguments based on the percentage of the population. [...more]
December 23, 2011
In an early Christmas present to Maryland’s Democratic leaders, a three-judge federal court has totally rejected all the arguments in a lawsuit challenging the state’s congressional district map passed and signed Oct. 20. The court’s unusually rapid 55-page opinion, issued just three days after a hearing on the case, paves the way for Maryland to conduct its presidential primary election on April 3 as planned, with a filing deadline Jan. 11. [...more]
Racial politics and concerns about community cohesion dominated a three-hour hearing Thursday as scores of people from across Maryland came to Annapolis to condemn, offer suggestions and even praise the new legislative district map drawn by Gov. Martin O’Malley’s Redistricting Advisory Committee. [...more]
December 22, 2011
Gov. Martin O’Malley said Thursday that he was surprised and “very disappointed” when he learned that Richard Stewart, a member of the Governor’s Redistricting Advisory Committee, pleaded guilty last Thursday to failing to pay almost $4 million in federal Social Security and income taxes for a company he owned. [...more]
Richard Stewart, a member of the five-person Governor’s Redistricting Advisory Committee, pleaded guilty last Thursday to failing to pay almost $4 million in federal Social Security and income taxes for a company he owned. [...more]
December 20, 2011
Arguments before a three-judge panel in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt Tuesday morning left state officials and a group of black voters opposed to the new congressional districts watching the clock to find out if April’s primary election can proceed as scheduled. [...more]
December 18, 2011
The two top Democrats in the General Assembly are pretty happy with the legislative district maps they helped draw, safely slicing the pie to protect their super-majorities. Republicans, on the other hand, are not pasting smiley face stickers on the plan submitted Friday evening, which could force some incumbents to run against each other. [...more]
December 7, 2011
The Legislative Black Caucus plans on submitting General Assembly redistricting maps to the Governor’s Redistricting Advisory Committee (GRAC) this week, saying black voters are under-represented in the legislature. “We can’t operate in the same way we’ve operated in the past because we’re going to run afoul of the Voting Rights Act,” said the Black Caucus Redistricting Committee chair, Del. Aisha Braveboy. [...more]
