Maryland Can and Must Redistrict

The fact is: Maryland’s potential one-seat pickup could determine control of the House. National analyses show that a single seat may decide whether Congress can defend democracy—or enable its destruction.

theguardian.com, November 2, 2025

The stakes were underscored with the Supreme Court decision December 4, 2025 that Texas can use its new GOP-drawn congressional map—even though it’s likely an illegal racial gerrymander.

We have to respond to reality. Maryland cannot pretend it lives outside the urgent national context. We are watching a coordinated, multi-state campaign to build a congressional majority willing to shield a lawless president from accountability.

The Commission has not been asked to decide about open or closed primaries or ranked choice or other election methods. The question is whether Maryland will use its constitutional authority to ensure fair representation—and to prevent other states’ manipulated maps from determining the future for all of us.

A mid-cycle redistricting can correct Maryland’s real representational distortions, starting with District 1, a textbook gerrymander that has left hundreds of thousands of Marylanders feeling un-represented.

The 2022 Maryland court ruling that rejected the General Assembly’s redrawn congressional map?… It shocked many legal experts at the time and has since been publicly criticized as just plain wrong on the law. Regardless, nothing in that decision prevents mid-cycle action.

And Action Now is what is wanted.

Polling shows a majority of voters—Democrats, independents, and many Republicans—support mid-cycle redistricting because they understand the stakes. They know Democracy is not self-sustaining.

No one is coming to save us.

Maryland needs to send a clear signal: we will not allow anti-democratic gerrymanders elsewhere to dictate our fate.

The Governor's Redistricting Advisory Commission must act accordingly. The integrity of the U.S. House—and the future of American democracy—may hinge on their decision.

This testimony was delivered by Peta Richkus, Steering Committee member of Indivisible Baltimore County, during the December 5, 2025 GRAC hearing, as part of the Indivisible Maryland Coalition effort to secure mid-cycle redistricting and to encourage Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson to add his voice to the expanding number of citizens and elected officials calling for action.
(Peta is a Congressional District 2 resident, a former Maryland Secretary of the Department of General Services, former Commissioner for the Port of Baltimore, and former Maryland representative to President Obama’s U.S. Trade Representative’s Intergovernmental Advisory Committee.)