Maryland Democrats just received an inconvenient reminder from a state judge: when the legislature writes election laws, the legislature is expected to follow them too.
What a revolutionary concept.
Anne Arundel County Circuit Court Judge Robert J. Thompson issued an injunction Wednesday blocking Maryland from placing a congressional redistricting amendment before voters on the November ballot, handing Republicans an initial victory in their battle against a Democratic redistricting maneuver.
The ruling is currently on hold while the case heads to the Maryland Supreme Court, so this fight is far from finished.
At the center of the dispute is a proposed constitutional amendment approved by Maryland’s Democratic-controlled General Assembly during a two-day special session in early August.
The proposal would establish that Maryland’s congressional districts are not required to be “geographically contiguous” and “compact.”
That language matters because the measure could make it more difficult to challenge future congressional maps if Democratic lawmakers decide to redraw district boundaries in a way that targets Republican Rep. Andy Harris.
Harris is currently Maryland’s only Republican member of Congress.
Republicans therefore aren’t exactly buying the argument that this is merely some boring administrative cleanup exercise.
Del. Ryan Nawrocki, a Baltimore County Republican and one of the plaintiffs challenging the measure, accused Annapolis Democrats of embracing a “rules for thee, but not for we” philosophy.
“Annapolis Democrats wrote the deadlines, expected everyone else to follow them, and then ignored their own law the moment it was inconvenient,” Nawrocki said. “Today the court said that doesn’t fly.”
That pretty neatly summarizes the Republican case.
Importantly, the proposed amendment itself would not establish a new congressional map. Instead, it would change the constitutional framework surrounding congressional districts, potentially giving lawmakers more room to draw unusual district boundaries without facing challenges based on compactness or geographic continuity.
Attorney Jeffrey B. Clark Sr., representing conservative activist Mike Howell and a group of Republican state lawmakers, argued that the General Assembly failed to comply with procedures lawmakers themselves enacted during the regular 2026 legislative session.
Assistant Attorney General Daniel M. Kobrin defended the state’s handling of the referendum during hours of arguments Tuesday.
Judge Thompson ultimately sided with the challengers on the procedural issue.
“The General Assembly of Maryland, working within the confines of the Maryland Constitution, has enacted certain laws which cover the means, mode, and method of proposing ballot referenda,” Thompson wrote.
He continued that lawmakers “must follow the means and methods those laws describe” when sending constitutional questions to Maryland voters.
In plain English: writing the rules doesn’t put you above the rules.
Thompson also noted that he did not believe Maryland’s Constitution itself establishes a deadline preventing lawmakers from proposing ballot questions. The problem is the practical election calendar and statutory procedures governing how those questions reach voters.
Democrats may still prevail on appeal, and another lawsuit challenging the referendum remains pending in Dorchester County.
But the political motivation behind the proposal is going to remain part of the debate regardless of what happens in court.
Maryland is already overwhelmingly Democratic at the congressional level. Republicans hold exactly one seat.
Apparently, for some Annapolis Democrats, even that is one Republican too many.
If Democrats want voters to approve new redistricting rules, they can make that argument openly. But attempting to change the constitutional playing field while allegedly bypassing procedures the legislature itself created is precisely the sort of behavior that makes voters cynical about government.
For now, a judge has told Annapolis that its own rules actually apply to Annapolis.
Imagine that.
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