This article was republished with permission from WTOP’s news partners at Maryland Matters. Read the story at Maryland Matters.
Gov. Wes Moore (D) has issued an executive order calling the Maryland General Assembly back to Annapolis next month.
House and Senate leaders had already agreed on an Aug. 3-5 special session to pass legislation that will set legal standards for how the state’s eight congressional districts are drawn. Moore’s July 17 executive order represents a necessary legal formality.
A spokesperson for Moore said the governor’s office did not publicize the order as it was viewed as “perfunctory.”
The General Assembly can petition itself back into special session, but that requires a majority of both the House and Senate to sign a petition. More common is when the governor calls a special session by executive order.
Lawmakers are scheduled to return to Annapolis and take up an amendment to the Maryland Constitution that gets around a 2022 decision by Judge Lynne Battaglia. That ruling struck down a 2021 congressional map, citing language in the state constitution that requires districts be compact, contiguous and mindful of jurisdictional and geographic boundaries. Before her ruling, the compact and contiguous language had always been interpreted to only apply to General Assembly districts, not congressional districts.
The decision, while not a precedent, was a novel interpretation of the state constitution. It also represented a hurdle to midcycle redistricting to Senate President Bill Ferguson (D).
Moore, in his executive order, wrote that the session would be to amend the constitution to “reaffirm that the provisions which govern the requirements of our state legislative districts do not apply to Maryland’s congressional districts.”
Exact language of the bill lawmakers will take up in the August session is not yet public, but any changes approved in the special session would not have an effect before the 2028 elections. It is not expected that a new map, like the one passed by the House earlier this year, will be part of the special session effort.
Ferguson and House Speaker Joseline Peña-Melnyk (D-Prince George’s and Anne Arundel) sent a letter to delegates and senators in which they prohibited any bill not related to redistricting from being drafted or introduced.
