The Prince George’s County Council next year could expand, with two new seats that represent county voters as a whole, which proponents say would position the county better economically in a competitive region.
The council last week voted to add a question to the November general election ballot that would ask residents for approval to amend the county’s charter and add two at-large seats to the council.
The measure would increase the number of council members from nine to 11. The at-large seats would represent the nearly 900,000 residents in the county as a whole rather than a specific district within the county.
The bill was introduced in June and approved Wednesday at the last council meeting before the August recess.
County Executive Rushern L. Baker III has signaled his support for the two new countywide seats.
For Prince George’s County Council Chairman Derrick Leon Davis, the two new seats will give the county more economic weight in the region since at-large members can think about the county as a whole, while district representatives often have to put their smaller constituencies first.
“This is the ideology of regionalism versus parochialism,” Mr. Davis told The Washington Times. “When fighting over pennies, you can’t go fight for dollars. If nine individuals are fighting for specific things, then who is fighting regionally?”
But opponents of the measure have said the two new seats would simply be a way for current council members who are approaching their term limits to run for a third and fourth term.
In Prince George’s County, council members can only serve two consecutive terms, but under the charter amendment, anyone would be able to run for an at-large seat even if they previously had served their term limits as district representatives. Currently, five council members are serving their second terms.
“I dismiss that argument,” Mr. Davis said. “The only way to extend term limits is to extend term limits. There are a lot of people who conflate those issues.”
Mr. Davis said he and his co-sponsors in crafting the bill wanted to make sure no one was explicitly or arbitrarily excluded from running for the new seats.
“We’re moving away from cynical ideology and parochial thinking,” he said, referring to infighting that can often occur when two district representatives fight for their constituents without thinking of the county as a whole.
Mr. Davis also said the at-large seats would bring the county more in line with the other large jurisdictions in the region.
The use of at-large seats is split among the surrounding counties in Maryland and neighboring District of Columbia.
In Montgomery County, which is home to just over 1 million residents, five council members are elected to district seats and four members hold at-large seats.
The District also uses the at-large system. Its council has eight members representing wards in the city, an at-large chairman and four at-large members to represent the city’s nearly 660,000 residents.
The city is unique regionally in that it sets aside two at-large seats for minority political parties. Since the vast majority of D.C. voters are Democrats, two of the at-large seats are reserved for any non-Democratic candidate. They are often held by independents and Republicans.
Smaller counties, however, often do not employ at-large members.
Howard County has no at-large seats to represent its 305,000 people. Instead, the council is divided into five districts. Anne Arundel County does the same with its council, which is divided into seven districts with no at-large seats for its 556,000 residents.
• Ryan M. McDermott can be reached at rmcdermott@washingtontimes.com.
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