Credit: Phil Yacuboski
As Maryland nears the quadrennial redistricting process, Gov. Larry Hogan on Tuesday issued an executive order establishing an independent commission charged with drawing new legislative and congressional maps.
Redistricting reform has long been a pet cause of the Republican governor. In 2018, a case challenging Maryland s legislative districts went to the Supreme Court. The majority ruled that gerrymandering was a political question.
“This commission is the first of its kind in the long history of our state,” Hogan said. “Unlike the partisan, backdoor manner in which our state’s political power brokers have conducted the state’s redistricting process, we want to make sure that this time the people of Maryland are actually the ones drawing these lines not the politicians or the party bosses.”