Yesterday Maryland Governor Wes Moore appeared on Face the Nation. He said that he and his fellow Democrats are looking into redistricting Maryland to eliminate the only GOP House member now representing that state:
MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you about something your party is tinkering with here, redistricting or gerrymandering, as some people know it. You’ve said you don’t like talking about it, but all options are on the table when it comes to your state. There’s only one- one seat here that is actually Republican, and it’s a seat held by Representative Andy Harris. Are you considering trying to redraw lines in Maryland?
MOORE: Yeah. When I say all options are on the table, all options are on the table.
BRENNAN: Are you actively looking at it now?
***
MOORE: Yes, and I think- and I think we have to, because I think what’s happened is this is what people hate about politics in the first place, the fact that the President of the United States very similar to what he did in Georgia, where he called up a series of voter registrants and said, I need you to find me more votes. We’re watching the same thing now, where he’s calling up legislatures around the country and saying, I need you to find me more congressional districts.BRENNAN: He’s doing it. That may be different, but Democrats redistrict, you know this, Gavin Newsom is doing it right now. A few years ago in New York, we saw this. This can backfire. Do you really want to go down this road?
MOORE: I want to make sure that we have fair lines and fair seats, where we don’t have situations where- where politicians are choosing voters, but that voters actually have a chance to choose their elected officials.
Except for Republican voters. Maryland Democrats, like those in California, are talking about a mid-census redistricting process to gerrymander their state even further. But the remarkable fact is that Maryland is already gerrymandered to almost the maximum extent possible.
In the 2024 election for the U.S. House, 63% of ballots cast were for Democrats. But, because of the Democrats’ past gerrymandering, 8 of 9 House members–87.5%–are Democrats. Governor Moore is now talking about trying to eliminate the last remaining Republican, so that the 37% of Marylanders who voted for Republicans will have no representation at all.
This is ostensibly being done in response to an effort to redistrict Texas; some think that redistricting there could add five Republican seats. But Texas is currently one of the least gerrymandered states in the country. In 2024, Democrats got 40.4% of the votes and won 34.2% of the state’s House seats. That is a vastly fairer–less gerrymandered–district map than either California or Maryland has. And even if Texas did swing five more seats to the GOP, it would still be less gerrymandered that California and Maryland are today–let alone if they change their boundaries to eliminate all, or in the case of California nearly all, Republican representation.
The Democrats’ use of extreme gerrymandering is one more instance of their persistent bad faith. If you are going to share a country with fellow citizens about whom you disagree on important policy issues, it is vital that both sides believe their opponents are acting in good faith. When good faith disappears, no written document can preserve a republic. At this moment in history, the Democrats’ pervasive bad faith, manifested in many ways on a daily basis, is driving the United States toward disunion.
