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Old 09-02-2021, 10:16 AM
 
2,289 posts, read 1,542,857 times
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Here's a good overview to get rolling. The excerpt below is from a longer piece in Sabato's Crystal Ball focusing on the Mid-Atlantic & North East.

Quote:
MARYLAND
Number of seats: 8 (no change from 2010s)

Breakdown in 2012: 7-1 D

Current party breakdown: 7-1 D

Most overpopulated district: MD-4 (Eastern Washington, D.C. suburbs)

Most underpopulated district: MD-7 (West Side Baltimore and suburbs)

Who controls redistricting: Democrats

2012 control: Democrats

Over the past decade, when Democrats complained about gerrymanders in states like North Carolina and Ohio, Republicans, almost without fail, would point to Maryland -- and not without good reason. Maryland, with its wiggly lines and barely contiguous districts, has one of the ugliest congressional maps in the country. After 2010, Democrats held a 6-2 advantage in the state’s delegation. As Maryland was one of the few states Democrats had control over a decade ago, they aimed to expand that advantage. The result was a 7-1 map that was passed by the legislature and signed by then-Gov. Martin O’Malley (D-MD).

The enacted plan worked out as intended for the duration of the decade, although MD-6, the seat that Democrats gained in 2012, nearly reverted back to the GOP in 2014. Still, even partisan Democrats often cringe at the map’s odd shapes. MD-3, for example, was drawn for Rep. John Sarbanes -- though it was long a Baltimore-area seat, it takes in a part of Montgomery County, in Washington D.C.’s suburbs, and then juts out to grab the state capital, Annapolis. Sarbanes, whose father was a senator, has been rumored to have statewide ambitions himself. By representing such an odd seat, he’s been able to establish himself in disparate corners of the state -- something that would serve him well in a state campaign.

Though Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD) remains popular and has worked to establish an independent commission aimed at drawing fair maps, the reality is that Democrats hold veto-proof majorities in the state legislature, thus giving them redistricting power. In a recent U.S. Supreme Court case, plaintiffs alleged that Maryland’s gerrymandered districts violated the First Amendment rights of its voters. The high court declined to intervene in 2019, ruling that federal courts could not constrain partisan gerrymandering. Maryland’s map was left untouched. Though Democratic mappers will have to draw plans that would satisfy the state Court of Appeals -- the highest court in the state, where Republican-appointed judges hold a majority -- they otherwise have broad latitude. Still, there is a possibility that the state’s high court could intervene on behalf of Republicans much as Democratic-majority state courts have intervened on behalf of Democrats on redistricting matters in North Carolina and Pennsylvania in recent years.

Democrats could try for an 8-0 monopoly in the delegation by targeting Rep. Andy Harris (R, MD-1), who was the sole Republican from the state elected last decade. A member of the Freedom Caucus, Harris is a strident conservative. Earlier this year, dozens of Democratic state legislators accused him of complicity in the Jan. 6 insurrection -- though altering his seat may have already been on their minds, this could be a convenient justification for drawing him out. MD-1 has long been characterized as an Eastern Shore district, but it also includes some suburban counties closer to Baltimore -- Harris is from Harford County, in the latter category. The suburban Baltimore component is actually the more Republican-leaning part of the district: Trump carried the Eastern Shore 57%-41% while he took over 60% in the rest of the district.

In any case, the Eastern Shore, with 456,000 residents, has enough population for just under 60% of a district. Mappers could take MD-1 across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and bring it into Anne Arundel and Prince George’s counties -- it could also feasibly take in some Democratic Baltimore-area precincts. So there are a few ways to draw a Democratic-leaning seat that includes the Eastern Shore. The remainder of the current MD-1 -- areas like Harford County -- could be split among the adjacent Democratic seats.

By composition, Maryland is about 30% Black, and two of its districts currently have Black majorities. Rep. Anthony Brown’s (D, MD-4) seat is based mainly in Prince George’s County, hugging Washington D.C. MD-4 is 53% Black, and will need to shed about 50,000 people. MD-7, which has a Baltimore focus, is the state’s slowest-growing seat and is just over 50% Black -- Baltimore City lost population over the past decade. Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D, MD-7) is on his second congressional tour: He represented the seat from 1987 to 1996, then was replaced by the noteworthy Rep. Elijah Cummings. When Cummings died in 2019, Mfume defeated his successor’s widow to regain the seat. MD-7 will need to pick up about 50,000 residents -- to sustain its slim Black majority, it could add some heavily minority precincts. This may make it harder for Democrats to shore up adjacent Reps. John Sarbanes and Dutch Ruppersberger, especially if Democrats also opt to make Harris’s seat bluer.

Though it is possible to draw a third Black-majority seat, MD-5 may soon elect a Black member anyway. MD-5, which pairs a significant chunk of Prince George’s County with southern Maryland, is just over 40% Black and is held by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D, MD-5) -- originally elected in 1981, Hoyer is one of the longest-serving members in state history. In the 2016 Democratic primary for Senate, then-Reps. Chris Van Hollen and Donna Edwards faced off. Though Van Hollen won the primary by 14 points, Edwards, a progressive Black woman, carried MD-5 by a 50%-41% margin. It probably helped that Edwards was from the adjacent MD-4, but it is not hard to see a Black candidate winning an open-seat primary in MD-5. At 82, it seems likely Hoyer will retire sometime over the next few cycles -- in his 2020 primary, he received some opposition, though still won with over 60%.

In the Washington D.C. suburbs, Montgomery County, with a population of over a million people, is the state’s largest county. While Sarbanes’ MD-3 has a small part of it, the county is otherwise split between Democratic Reps. David Trone’s MD-6 and Jamie Raskin’s MD-8 -- while both districts include some less populous counties, they are both comfortably blue most of the time, although Democrats may want to shore up MD-6, considering their close call in 2014.

Overall, drawing an 8-0 map is probably doable for Democrats, though getting enough incumbents on board, and ensuring that each district is adequately blue, may be tricky. If Democrats opt for another 7-1 plan, it seems likely they’ll simply clean up the current map.
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Old 09-02-2021, 03:03 PM
 
Location: Cumberland
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Sounds like what we were saying months ago. Take the risk for an 8-0, or play it safe and keep it 7-1. No reason to shore up District 6 with Frederick trending bluer all the time.
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Old 09-03-2021, 10:39 AM
 
2,289 posts, read 1,542,857 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by westsideboy View Post
Sounds like what we were saying months ago. Take the risk for an 8-0, or play it safe and keep it 7-1. No reason to shore up District 6 with Frederick trending bluer all the time.
You're probably right there. That said, I'd love to see Trone replaced. Spending $30M on two runs for the house sticks in my craw. For all his money, I don't see or hear much about him.
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Old 09-03-2021, 11:37 AM
 
Location: Cumberland
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The Very Man Himself View Post
You're probably right there. That said, I'd love to see Trone replaced. Spending $30M on two runs for the house sticks in my craw. For all his money, I don't see or hear much about him.
I'm glad he finally found a Congressional seat in his price range.

He was active with lots of phone-conference town hall type meetings when the pandemic first hit. It was a good look for him. He sounded competent and had doctors and health officials with him to answer the science questions while he handled the government response.

I'm not sure what any elected official can do with the 6th district, the needs of Oakland and Potomac are so radically different. It is a throw-away district and is treated as such.
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Old 09-03-2021, 08:20 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by westsideboy View Post
I'm glad he finally found a Congressional seat in his price range.

He was active with lots of phone-conference town hall type meetings when the pandemic first hit. It was a good look for him. He sounded competent and had doctors and health officials with him to answer the science questions while he handled the government response.

I'm not sure what any elected official can do with the 6th district, the needs of Oakland and Potomac are so radically different. It is a throw-away district and is treated as such.

Well it was gerrymandered to get rid of Roscoe Bartlett and Western Maryland Republican powerbase. I understand that Van Hollen didn't like they new 8th district either and thought that O'Malley had engineered it so that he would have to make some moderate statements that would make it harder for him to run for Senate if O'Malley also decided to run.


I was an election judge in Frederick County the election after the redistricting took affect and had a woman screaming at me because Roscoe wasn't on her ballot. I tried to explain that we were now part of the 8th district but she didn't want to hear it. She was shouting that we were rigging the election to defeat Roscoe. I finally suggested that if she wanted to she could write in Roscoe Bartlett in the Congressional race. She said she would do that and tell all her friends to do it. I also suggested that after she was done voting she should go out and talk to the Republican campaigners outside the 100' line and see what they said.


We had several people ask about how to write in a candidate later in the afternoon and had I think 5 write ins for Congress by the end of the day. It was the only race we had any write-ins for.
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Old 09-04-2021, 11:03 AM
 
2,289 posts, read 1,542,857 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MidValleyDad View Post
Well it was gerrymandered to get rid of Roscoe Bartlett and Western Maryland Republican powerbase. I understand that Van Hollen didn't like they new 8th district either and thought that O'Malley had engineered it so that he would have to make some moderate statements that would make it harder for him to run for Senate if O'Malley also decided to run.


I was an election judge in Frederick County the election after the redistricting took affect and had a woman screaming at me because Roscoe wasn't on her ballot. I tried to explain that we were now part of the 8th district but she didn't want to hear it. She was shouting that we were rigging the election to defeat Roscoe. I finally suggested that if she wanted to she could write in Roscoe Bartlett in the Congressional race. She said she would do that and tell all her friends to do it. I also suggested that after she was done voting she should go out and talk to the Republican campaigners outside the 100' line and see what they said.


We had several people ask about how to write in a candidate later in the afternoon and had I think 5 write ins for Congress by the end of the day. It was the only race we had any write-ins for.
O'Malley would be well advised to wait until Cardin retires rather than take on Van Hollen who is a very adept campaigner. His first run for the House against Mark Shriver in the primary was a classic. He defined Shriver as an empty suit, despite having Kennedy money behind him.
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Old 09-04-2021, 03:18 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The Very Man Himself View Post
O'Malley would be well advised to wait until Cardin retires rather than take on Van Hollen who is a very adept campaigner. His first run for the House against Mark Shriver in the primary was a classic. He defined Shriver as an empty suit, despite having Kennedy money behind him.

This was back when Mikulski was going to retire soon. Since then O'Malley made a poor bid for President and Van Hollen took the Senate seat. Van Hollen took the new 8th in a cake walk because several Republicans who lived in the 8th ran in the primary in the 6th because they thought Roscoe was going to retire. I think a couple of them had enough name recognition thatthey could have won the 8th. But they all wanted the 'easy route' and tried to coast into Roscoe's seat. Some even tried to get Roscoe to endorse them. This left a minor league unknown to run in the 8th. In the end Roscoe screwed them all over by not stepping away.
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Old 10-05-2021, 12:11 PM
 
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Hogan has apparently asked the Redistricting Commission to change legislative districts from multi-seat to single-seat, where possible. The Commission is divided on the merits.

Personally, I prefer multi-member, in part because I'd like to see the introduction of ranked-choice voting, and multi-member better lends itself to that. I also don't find the advantages of single-member very persuasive.

https://www.marylandmatters.org/2021...ber-districts/
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Old 10-07-2021, 04:28 PM
 
Location: Cumberland
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The Very Man Himself View Post
Hogan has apparently asked the Redistricting Commission to change legislative districts from multi-seat to single-seat, where possible. The Commission is divided on the merits.

Personally, I prefer multi-member, in part because I'd like to see the introduction of ranked-choice voting, and multi-member better lends itself to that. I also don't find the advantages of single-member very persuasive.

https://www.marylandmatters.org/2021...ber-districts/
Multi-member seats dilute the vote of minorities, be them race, ethnicity, or political party. A 30-40k person district allows a candidate (or surrogate) the chance to make personal contact with just about every likely voter. It allows that 30-40k group the chance to know their legislator, and pick somebody in line with their community demographics and political leanings. Throw these same people into a 120k "pick 3" district, and you more or less are going to get 3 delegates from the political party that has the majority in that 120k population. It isn't a coincidence the Democrats don't want to change this, there would be pockets of 30-40k people that may vote for a Republicans, even in deep blue counties downstate. This doesn't happen when you dilute these people's votes by design, and make the district big enough that the personal candidate touch can't reach the voters. I have worked on these kind of races, and they are almost always straight-ticket voting affairs. The game is to survive the primary, slate up, and get enough name recognition that the voters know you are part of that slate.

I find the "you get three delegates with different skills!" argument laughable. What skills? All three elected officials having the same ability to vote with the Dem. super majority on each bill or veto override isn't a skill.

I oppose ranked choice voting. I have worked on multi-candidate races where strategic voting happens (Pick, 1, 2, or 3 races mostly) and what I have seen isn't good. The more strategy you allow in voting, the further away you get from the "one person, one vote" idea. In my county, a few precincts already punch above their weight because they know how to use the system to their advantage. When over 1,000 voters all "Vote for the hometown boy, and leave the rest of the ballot blank" you are nearly sure to see that hometown boy make it through. Communities where voters use all three of their possible votes lose out, big time, in comparison.

Ranked choice voting here would kill any Dem's chances of winning, simply because enough voters out here would tank them to last on the ballot to make sure their "hometown boy" makes it through. I assume the same would happen in other places too. "Down voting" is something you do on Social Media, not in a political contest.
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Old 10-07-2021, 07:17 PM
 
2,289 posts, read 1,542,857 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by westsideboy View Post
Multi-member seats dilute the vote of minorities, be them race, ethnicity, or political party. A 30-40k person district allows a candidate (or surrogate) the chance to make personal contact with just about every likely voter. It allows that 30-40k group the chance to know their legislator, and pick somebody in line with their community demographics and political leanings. Throw these same people into a 120k "pick 3" district, and you more or less are going to get 3 delegates from the political party that has the majority in that 120k population. It isn't a coincidence the Democrats don't want to change this, there would be pockets of 30-40k people that may vote for a Republicans, even in deep blue counties downstate. This doesn't happen when you dilute these people's votes by design, and make the district big enough that the personal candidate touch can't reach the voters. I have worked on these kind of races, and they are almost always straight-ticket voting affairs. The game is to survive the primary, slate up, and get enough name recognition that the voters know you are part of that slate.

I find the "you get three delegates with different skills!" argument laughable. What skills? All three elected officials having the same ability to vote with the Dem. super majority on each bill or veto override isn't a skill.

I oppose ranked choice voting. I have worked on multi-candidate races where strategic voting happens (Pick, 1, 2, or 3 races mostly) and what I have seen isn't good. The more strategy you allow in voting, the further away you get from the "one person, one vote" idea. In my county, a few precincts already punch above their weight because they know how to use the system to their advantage. When over 1,000 voters all "Vote for the hometown boy, and leave the rest of the ballot blank" you are nearly sure to see that hometown boy make it through. Communities where voters use all three of their possible votes lose out, big time, in comparison.

Ranked choice voting here would kill any Dem's chances of winning, simply because enough voters out here would tank them to last on the ballot to make sure their "hometown boy" makes it through. I assume the same would happen in other places too. "Down voting" is something you do on Social Media, not in a political contest.
I mostly don't buy your argument. I grew up under multi-seat with ranked-choice, but also 4-6 viable parties who could field candidates. The attraction of ranked-choice ( also called Proportional Representation PR) was exactly that it allowed the little guys a better chance for a seat at the table.

Currently, Md has a multi-seat without a ranked-choice model.

R-C is expanding in the US. The recent NYC Mayor's race is the most recent high-profile example. It was considered a success despite the count mess-up.

I do recognize that the choice of only two viable parties in the US limits the benefits of R-C.
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