If Attorney General Merrick Garland is serious about fighting allegations of gerrymandering and not just playing politics, he should sue Maryland — and that’s according to the governor.
Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, publicly dared the Justice Department to sue his state after the Democrat-controlled legislature overrode Dec. 9 his veto of the newly drawn congressional districts, which he called “disgracefully illegal gerrymandered maps which are a shameful violation of federal law.”
Mr. Garland filed a lawsuit Dec. 6 against Texas over its Republican-tilting redistricting plans, saying they violate the Voting Rights Act, but so far the Biden Justice Department has not taken action against a Democrat-friendly map.
“In announcing the Texas lawsuit, Mr. Garland argued that ’a core principle of our democracy is that voters should choose their representatives, not the other way around.’ He’s right. The attorney general should sue Maryland, too,” Mr. Hogan said in a Dec. 17 op-ed in The Wall Street Journal.
Democrats already control seven of Maryland’s eight congressional seats, and the newly passed map puts into play the lone Republican seat held by Rep. Andy Harris while strengthening the Democratic grip on the other seven districts.
“Attorney General Merrick Garland announced last week that the Justice Department is suing Texas, alleging that its Republican-drawn redistricting map violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965,” Mr. Hogan said. “Days later, the Democrat-controlled Maryland General Assembly overrode my veto of Maryland’s new congressional map, making the nation’s most gerrymandered map even worse and creating far more egregious civil rights violations than in Texas.”
After hiding their plans for months, the partisan politicians in Annapolis have rejected the will of Marylanders and released a draft map for legislative elections that were drawn in a backroom to make the nation’s worst gerrymandering even worse. https://t.co/ZLRJBaN57T
— Larry Hogan (@LarryHogan) December 21, 2021
Mr. Garland accused Texas of creating redistricting plans that “deny or abridge the rights of Latino and Black voters on account of their race, color or membership in a language minority group.”
Mr. Hogan said the Maryland map is just as bad, if not worse. He noted that the 3rd Congressional District held by Rep. John Sarbanes was described by The Washington Post as “the most gerrymandered district in America.”
“Minority voters in Maryland deserve the full protection of the law, regardless of what party benefits politically in the short term,” said Mr. Hogan. “Mr. Garland and the Biden administration can live up to their rhetoric by holding both parties accountable for discriminatory gerrymandering — or it can politicize the Justice Department by holding red states and blue states to different standards.”
Maryland Democratic legislators have defended the map, saying it creates competitive districts and protects minority voting rights despite the state’s geographical challenges.
“We have an inherently strangely geographically configured state. We did not do it. God did it or nature did it. And it is very difficult to have the extent of parallelism and so on that some people on the floor are talking about today,” said Democratic state Sen. Delores Kelley in the Maryland Reporter.
Fair Maps Maryland spokesperson Doug Mayer said his group would take “aggressive legal action” against the redistricting measure.
“If President Biden’s Department of Justice can sue Texas over accusations of denying voting rights to minorities, then the people of Maryland deserve to have their case heard in court as well,” Mr. Mayer said in a Dec. 8 statement. “The legislature may have temporarily achieved their partisan goal today, but we can assure them that the courts will have the final say on this matter.”
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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