Delaney, Braveboy continue push for redistricting reform

Delaney, Braveboy continue push for redistricting reform

Above: Rep. John Delaney, Del. Aisha Braveboy and Dan Vicuna of Common Cause

By Len Lazarick

[email protected]

The Maryland congressman who probably benefited most from the state’s partisan gerrymandering in 2012 has also become one of the strongest advocates for reform.

“I think this issue has real potential for a state and national movement,” U.S. Rep. John Delaney told a forum on redistricting reform Monday night. “It’s about entrenched interests versus the interests of the people.”

Delaney’s 6th Congressional District, which stretches from Potomac to far western Maryland, was redrawn in 2012 to make it easier for a Democrat to win. A wealthy bank CEO, Delaney defeated 10-term Republican Congressman Roscoe Bartlett that year, and narrowly held on to the seat last week in the closest race for Congress in Maryland, winning by just 2,200 votes and a shade less than 50%.

“My district is a distinctly purple district,” Delaney said. “It forces me to speak to my entire constituency.”

The forum at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy in College Park was sponsored by Common Cause, the League of Women Voters and the Annapolis chapter of the National Council of Jewish Women. The groups have been pushing for reform of the congressional redistricting process in Maryland under the slogan “Tame the Gerrymander.”

For Common Cause and the League of Women Voters, the effort in Maryland, classified as one of the most gerrymandered states in the nation, is part of a national push to reform the system that helps produce the partisan polarization in Congress.

Hogan election seen as hopeful sign

The election of Republican Larry Hogan as governor last week also has buoyed hopes that the new governor will support reform of a system that has left the GOP with only one of Maryland’s eight congressional seats.

Maryland’s redistricting process for both congressional and state legislative districts is controlled by the governor and Democratic legislative leaders.

Del. Aisha Braveboy, a forum panelist, noted that even a bill to simply study redistricting reform in Maryland died in a House of Delegates committee. Braveboy, a Prince George’s County Democrat who ran for attorney general and will not be returning to the legislature, is hopeful that Gov. Hogan will use his powers of executive order to establish a commission to study redistricting reform.

Braveboy sees “more sanity coming to the redistricting process.”

“We’ve lost our way and we have to get back to representing the people’s business,” Braveboy said.

Delaney said, “To argue against this is a fundamentally indefensible position.” Plus, he added, “I think it’s pretty good politics.”

Jennifer Bevan-Dangel, executive director of Common Cause in Maryland, said Hogan’s staff had expressed interest in the topic.

Delaney wants open primaries

Delaney is sponsoring his own “Open Our Democracy Act” to reshape congressional elections at the national level.

The bill would make Election Day a national holiday to encourage voting, establish national standards for drawing district lines and — in what he admits is its “most controversial” provision — would make all primaries open primaries, with candidates from all parties vying in the same primary for all voters.

The top two vote getters would then run against each other in the general election.

California has switched to this system, and Delaney said it has made “the California legislature more constructive” and increased turnout.

“There is zero cost to experiment,” Delaney said. “The system we have now is so bad.”

Republican dissent

But Tanzi Strafford, a Gaithersburg resident who is a member of the Montgomery County Republican Central Committee and attended the forum, said a study by the Public Policy Institute of California found that the reforms there did not produce more turnout and did not produce candidates who were more moderate and less partisan.

In an August blog posting, Stafford said, “Delaney seeks to transform election process for the U.S. House of Representative to extend a tyranny of Democrats from Maryland to nationwide.”

In her blog, Strafford said, “In an open primary in Maryland, the most likely scenario is that the media will cover only Democratic candidates and completely ignore fine Republican candidates. Name recognition will drive votes to Democrats as the top two candidates in Maryland.

About The Author

Len Lazarick

[email protected]

Len Lazarick was the founding editor and publisher of MarylandReporter.com and is currently the president of its nonprofit corporation and chairman of its board He was formerly the State House bureau chief of the daily Baltimore Examiner from its start in April 2006 to its demise in February 2009. He was a copy editor on the national desk of the Washington Post for eight years before that, and has spent decades covering Maryland politics and government.

7 Comments

  1. ksteve

    Of course, Hogan and most Republicans in Maryland are going to be for any redistricting system that weakens Democratic electoral prospects and strengthens theirs. However, what Democrats do with redistricting in Maryland is done by Republicans in a number of other states. Any fair reform of redistricting has to be done on a national scale and in every state at once or those states that do it first are simply committing political suicide. It MATTERS to both Democrats and Republicans how many of their brand are elected to the House of Representatives and to state legislative bodies. Each party is going to try to maximize its number via redistricting and only damn fools would give up their right to do so while the other party could go right on doing its redistricting thing in other states.

  2. ksteve

    Open primaries along the lines of those held in California, Washington, or Louisiana are one thing (and may be worth considering), but unilateral redistricting “reform” that costs Democrats seats in Congress and/or the state legislature should (and I expect will) be rejected without serious consideration. The problem with the latter is that Republicans can and do do the same thing (gerrymander to their partisan advantage) in the states where they can do so and the GOP states still doing that are not likely to voluntarily and unilaterally commit political suicide either. Such redistricting reform should be undertaken at the federal level via a constitutional amendment requiring every state to do it the same way for the same year or it should not be undertaken at all.

  3. Andy Arnold

    If the Hogan camp forms a panel on this, I volunteer to sit on it. Gerrymandering is just another way of saying voter suppression. I’ll work with anyone to change this unfair system.

  4. Tony

    This is hilarious. In 2011, I started Marylanders for Coherent and Fair Representation, an organization focused on redistricting reform. In 2012, when I was criss-crossing the state to obtain signatures as co-chair for the petition drive which would lead to Question 5 on the ballot, Rep. Delaney, Delegate Braveboy, Common Cause and the LWV did not want anything to do with the entire process.

    It is telling that the particpants were all Democrats or simply Democratic operatives disguised as “champions of good government.” It is simply CYA for them so they can say they support redistricting reform until 2021 comes around or if Hogan wins a second term and draws Congressional and Legislative district lines that are more competitive

    • John

      What is the current status of the organization Marylanders for Coherent and Fair Representation? Perhaps a good strategy would be to join the Tame the Gerrymander Coalition. You can find information about it on the web sites of either the League of Women Voters, Maryland (LWVMD.org) or Common Cause, Maryland. Hope you can join us, Tony.

  5. CoolDavid

    Might want to add that the event drew 100 active participants, which is impressive for an issue that has no real money on either side, when the next redistricting isn’t slated until 2021.

  6. abby_adams

    Since when did the Dems care about representing ALL the people of Maryland? Gerrymandering is a pox no matter what party uses that tactic to ensure a win. Oh I’m sure those that love the latest MD congressional district map would argue that voters supported the new map through the ballot referendum yet most voters knew little about the convoluted boundary lines setting up no sweat wins for the Dems. I hope that under our new governor, changes might be made to the process taking it OUT of the hands of politicians. As for having a winner take all election, I’m not so sure. The devil is definitely in the details.

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