(Photo by Natalie Jones)
Despite recommendations from Baltimore County’s own Redistricting Commission, the County Council has introduced a plan that disregards public input and the Voting Rights Act — Bill 55-25. The Council tossed out all the time, work, and resources put into the community-centered process and substituted a map in blatant violation of the law by packing Black voters into just two districts, including one district that would have a whopping 77.5% Black and over 89% BIPOC voting population.
At a time when Texas lawmakers have recently approved an electoral map that gerrymanders districts across not only political but racial lines, a similar power grab is happening here in Maryland. The Baltimore County Council has brazenly moved to deepen inequity and reinforce white political dominance in a county where nearly half the population is Black or of color.
Earlier this year, the Baltimore County Redistricting Commission — composed of diverse community voices chosen by the County Council members themselves and guided by legal and demographic expertise — held four public hearings, met for six months, and crafted a plan that reflected the county’s diversity. The result was a final report that seeks to strike a balance among the myriad community and legal concerns raised throughout the months-long process. While the commission’s map did not achieve three majority Black districts on the west side and a BIPOC majority district on the east side — as so many residents, ACLU, Common Cause, NAACP, Fair Maps Coalition and 1199SEIU had hoped — it got close.
