Congressional Redistricting

Anne Arundel County political leaders filed a bipartisan suit in Baltimore's federal court yesterday, challenging a congressional redistricting plan they say denies the county a voice on Capitol Hill.The suit, brought by the Anne Arundel County Bipartisan Citizen's Coalition, asks the court to declare unconstitutional the plan that splits the county among four congressional districts. It asks that the General Assembly be required to pass a new redistricting plan by Dec. 1, or that the court impose a plan by Dec. 15.The suit, which lists the county Democratic and Republican parties and five county residents as plaintiffs, also seeks to bar state election officials from registering candidates for the March 3 congressional primary until the districts are resolved.

Maryland's House of Delegates is poised to give final approval Wednesday to Gov. Martin O'Malley's plan to redraw the state's eight congressional districts, but not before lawmakers engage in a final showdown over the controversial map. Despite objections over how the new map treats minority voters in the Washington suburbs, the measure has sailed through this week's special session of the General Assembly without significant opposition or...

ANNAPOLIS -- House and Senate leaders predicted yesterday that their respective chambers will pass competing congressional redistricting plans this week and that it could take days to work out a compromise.The gap between the plan the House of Delegates is expected to back and the variety of plans under consideration by the Senate is so great that the presiding officers have even discussed the possibility of postponing Maryland's March 3 presidential primary to buy more time, although they said that was unlikely.

Maryland's legislature should take the time to develop congressional districts that make sense. Democratic officials have said that the current map was just a starting point from which to develop new districts, which sounds good on the surface. But if we continue to take that approach every 10 years, the congressional district maps will get more and more ridiculous. Surely the data and computer software are available, or can be reasonably developed, to lay out congressional districts that look reasonable on a map and that group constituents with similar interests together.

Picture a lifeboat with eight passengers and only seven seats. The odd person out swims home with the sharks.That, in a nutshell, sums up Maryland's once-a-decade congressional redistricting process. As the process nears an end, state leaders face the unsavory prospect of putting two of the state's incumbent representatives into the same district.With a modest population increase documented in the 1990 census, Maryland will hold on to its eight congressional seats. But, it's almost a given that a federal voting-rights law will require the state to carve out a new majority-black district in the Washington suburbs.

IF HOUSE SPEAKER Casper R. Taylor Jr. gets his way, the General Assembly session that starts tomorrow won't be the only one this year. The speaker is promoting the idea of calling a special session in the fall to deal with congressional redistricting for the 2002 election. Congressional redistricting will be a contentious issue because the state's dominant Democrats are determined to pick up at least one House seat in a state delegation that is now split between the parties, 4-4. Taylor, a Cumberland Democrat, said that by calling a special session, the Assembly could avoid having to deal with the politically charged matter during its regular 90-day session next year, when it will also have to deal with the even more touchy issue of redrawing state legislative districts.

Far more than the shape of congressional boundaries is at stake in the Annapolis brouhaha over redistricting. It's a fight over power and who really calls the shots in the three-ring circus known as the State House.Three characters are at the heart of this drama: the governor, the speaker of the House and the Senate president. Friction among the three has always been present. It is inherent in Maryland's governmental framework.But there's a difference. This time, the battle is between House Speaker R. Clayton Mitchell and Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller.

WASHINGTON - Craving a national audience they once shunned, boycotting Texas senators kicked off an eight-city "Defending Democracy Tour" yesterday by telling Washington reporters that redistricting in Texas threatens representative government from coast to coast. "There is a national pattern of abuse of power," said state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, a Democrat from El Paso. "If a majority, any majority, can change the rules any time it wants to win, then democracy loses." The $1 million tour is financed by an Internet-based liberal activist group, MoveOn.

ANNAPOLIS -- Deadlock turned to deadline on congressional redistricting yesterday as House Speaker R. Clayton Mitchell Jr., D-Kent, said he would end the special legislative session Monday night unless a compromise is reached.Mr. Mitchell, irritated after nearly four weeks of haggling, said he would favor sending competing House and Senate redistricting plans to Gov. William Donald Schaefer, who could then choose one of them.Mr. Schaefer said later at a hastily called news conference that he would be willing to do that and was leaning toward the House-passed version.

Members of the Maryland Senate were returning to Annapolis today to work on passing a new congressional redistricting plan to leave for their absent colleagues in the House of Delegates.House Speaker R. Clayton Mitchell Jr., saying that the Senate was not giving his favored proposal a fair consideration, sent the 141 delegates home yesterday, only 24 hours after the start of the special session called to draw new district maps.Mitchell's action puzzled some senators, who said the two chambers had not had a chance to negotiate the politically loaded issue.

The proposed Maryland congressional districts should not put current representation at risk by further fracturing the continuity of districts ("Two maps emerge in redistricting discussions," Sept. 30). The current districts fairly and accurately represent the dominance of party registration, unlike the 1990 districts created by then-Gov. William Donald Schaefer to protect two of his GOP cronies and to "get" Rep. Charles McMillen, which resulted in a very unrepresentative 50-50 party split.

WASHINGTON - Craving a national audience they once shunned, boycotting Texas senators kicked off an eight-city "Defending Democracy Tour" yesterday by telling Washington reporters that redistricting in Texas threatens representative government from coast to coast. "There is a national pattern of abuse of power," said state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, a Democrat from El Paso. "If a majority, any majority, can change the rules any time it wants to win, then democracy loses." The $1 million tour is financed by an Internet-based liberal activist group, MoveOn.

Insistence on drilling in Alaskan treasure stalls energy progress Oil industry claims that only "a small portion" of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would be affected if drilling were allowed are grossly misleading ("Oil dispute hindering U.S. policy on energy," Jan. 27). This is our largest wildlife refuge, so the industry can argue that it would drill in only a small part of the whole. But suppose a doctor told you that he was planning to remove your heart, but that you shouldn't fret because, after all, the heart is but a fraction of your body mass?

IF HOUSE SPEAKER Casper R. Taylor Jr. gets his way, the General Assembly session that starts tomorrow won't be the only one this year. The speaker is promoting the idea of calling a special session in the fall to deal with congressional redistricting for the 2002 election. Congressional redistricting will be a contentious issue because the state's dominant Democrats are determined to pick up at least one House seat in a state delegation that is now split between the parties, 4-4. Taylor, a Cumberland Democrat, said that by calling a special session, the Assembly could avoid having to deal with the politically charged matter during its regular 90-day session next year, when it will also have to deal with the even more touchy issue of redrawing state legislative districts.

Earlier this summer, the Supreme Court told the state of Georgia it relied too heavily on race in creating congressional districts. In drawing a new map, race cannot be the predominant factor, but politics can be.And politics can be a potent force. The Georgia General Assembly convenes today in special session to undertake this political mapmaking, a task that is certain to affect similar cases in North Carolina, Texas, New York and Louisiana.At stake are three congressional districts with sizable black populations and eight predominantly white, Republican-voting districts.

WASHINGTON -- Splitting 5-4, the Supreme Court imposed tight new constitutional limits yesterday on the creation of black-dominated election districts, endangering the political futures of thousands of officeholders, from Congress to school boards.The lawmaker most immediately threatened -- second-term Rep. Cynthia A. McKinney -- sat solemnly in the courtroom and bowed her head as the court found her Georgia district to be an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.That district was created in "a deliberate attempt" to bunch black populations together, the court said in a ruling that lambasted the Justice Department for using race too aggressively in pushing congressional redistricting in the South.

The standoff between Maryland lawmakers over congressional redistricting continued today in Annapolis as the Senate returned to work while, across the hall, the House of Delegates chamber remained empty.House Speaker R. Clayton Mitchell Jr., saying the Senate was not giving his favored proposal a fair consideration, sent the 141 delegates home yesterday, only 24 hours after the start of the special session called to draw new district maps.Today Mitchell, seated outside his State House office, said he is willing to meet privately with Senate leadership "today, the next day and the next day and the next."

WASHINGTON -- Splitting 5-4, the Supreme Court imposed tight new constitutional limits yesterday on the creation of black-dominated election districts, endangering the political futures of thousands of officeholders, from Congress to school boards.The lawmaker most immediately threatened -- second-term Rep. Cynthia A. McKinney -- sat solemnly in the courtroom and bowed her head as the court found her Georgia district to be an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.That district was created in "a deliberate attempt" to bunch black populations together, the court said in a ruling that lambasted the Justice Department for using race too aggressively in pushing congressional redistricting in the South.