This article was republished with permission from WTOP’s news partners at Maryland Matters. Read the story at Maryland Matters.
A national law firm that advised Louisiana lawmakers on a redistricting effort that later resulted in the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision upending the landmark Voting Rights Act is representing a group of Maryland Republicans seeking to block a proposed amendment to the state constitution.
The lawsuit, filed in Dorchester County, is the second by filed by Republicans aiming to block the proposed amendment. It’s not immediately clear, however, who is footing the bill for the costs of the latest suit, which one lawmaker said could be “considerable.”
The proposed amendment passed earlier this month would set new standards for how Maryland draws its eight congressional districts. The latest suit, filed last week, focuses in part on claims that the proposed amendment undercuts key portions of the Maryland Declaration of Rights.
“It makes the strongest argument and, I think, the winning argument,” said Sen. Chris West (R-Baltimore and Carroll).
West is one of five Republicans who are plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed in Dorchester County. Others include Lindsay Wheatley, a member of the Dorchester County Republican Central Committee; Sen. Mary Beth Carozza (R-Lower Shore); Del. Chris Adams and Sen Johnny Mautz, Republicans who represent the Middle Shore.
Carozza did not respond to a request for comment.
West, an attorney, said the case was likely filed in Dorchester County because attorneys were “trying to find a judge they thought would give it [the case] a fair shake.”
Mautz, in an interview, said he believed the case was filed in Dorchester because of how it affects the Eastern Shore, which makes up a large portion of the 1st Congressional District.
“I think this was the only option for the Eastern Shore,” Mautz, who is also an attorney, said. “I think everyone wanted to have the case heard in the area most affected. It’s an extra layer of assurance.”
An attorney representing the state election board has filed a motion to have the case moved to Annapolis where an earlier lawsuit on the same constitutional amendment is scheduled for an Aug. 25 hearing.
Mautz, who acknowledged some similarities in the two cases, said the focus of the case filed in Dorchester is unique and relates to the approach some Senate Republicans took during what he described as an abbreviated debate.
“It all happened so fast,” he said. “It laid the groundwork for these multiple cases.”
The constitutional amendment passed this month is an extension of a year-long effort by Democratic officials to have the state join the scrum of red and blue states engaged in hyper-partisan midcycle congressional redistricting battles.
That effort was derailed in February when the Senate iced legislation that redrew Maryland’s eight congressional districts. The new maps would have increased the chances of Democrats controlling all eight seats. Right now, the party controls seven.
The map legislation was blocked by Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) who argued at the time that a new map could result in a Republican court challenge and ultimately more Republicans in congress.
Ferguson said he was concerned about a 2022 ruling by Judge Lynne Battaglia. Her decision struck down a 2021 congressional map. Battaglia applied a portion of the state constitution that requires districts be compact, contiguous and mindful of jurisdictional and geographic boundaries — language that had always been applied only to legislative districts, not congressional districts.
It was considered a novel ruling. Ferguson saw it as an impediment to new maps and potentially one that could open up new litigation on the 2022 compromise map that resulted. That compromise changed a map that favored Democrats in all eight of Maryland’s congressional districts and led to the current 7-1 Democratic-Republican split.
The constitutional amendment passed this month would ask voters to approve a change that would make clear that compact and contiguous requirements apply only to state legislative districts.
West said the change would end protections in the state’s 250-year-old bill of rights and “strip away all criteria” that a court could use to determine the legality of a congressional map.
Without a legal standard, the court would have “no choice but to dismiss any such challenges,” he said, adding that Democratic lawmakers, who hold super majorities in the House and Senate, could pass “whatever crazy gerrymander it wants with no way for the citizens or the courts of Maryland to push back” in the future.
The lawsuit in Dorchester County was filed Aug. 10 by an Annapolis-based attorney. It now includes five lawyers from BakerHostetler.
The firm has advised Republicans in other states on redistricting efforts and legal battles. It was also hired as advisors to Republican lawmakers in Louisiana five years ago as that state engaged in redistricting. The resulting map was the start of a series of legal challenges and redistricting efforts that ended this year in the Louisiana v. Callais decision that upended the voting rights act and made it illegal to use race as a determining factor when redrawing congressional district lines.
The latest Maryland lawsuit follows a line of questioning West used during a hearing on House Bill 2100 and in his floor remarks during the recent special session that approved the proposed amendment.
“It’s totally misleading as to what is happening,” West said.
West, who is not a member of the Senate Education, Energy and the Environment Committee, was allowed to join the joint House and Senate Committee hearing on the bill and question sponsors.
He later proposed an amendment changing the wording of the ballot question mandated by the bill to include references to portions of the Declaration of Rights that West said would be overturned by the new law should it be enacted.
The lawsuit filed last week is similar to one filed on Aug. 6. That challenge was filed by members of the Maryland Freedom Caucus and Senate Republican Caucus leaders.
Plaintiffs in that case are represented by the Oversight Project, an offshoot of the conversative Heritage Foundation and a plaintiff in the first GOP lawsuit. In a statement announcing its participation in the earlier suit, the Oversight Project claimed that it got involved because a win for the ballot measure would lead to a Maryland congressional delegation “filled by open border zealots who will put illegal aliens before the American people.”
Both lawsuits challenge the process by which the amendment was passed and sent to voters. In particular, the lawsuits question the legality of language added to the bill that allows the state to sidestep a July 1 deadline for ballot questions. Both also challenge an amendment that removes requirements of a law that went into effect this year requiring simple language to explain each question presented to voters.
Maryland State Elections Administrator Jared DeMarinis, in an email, declined to comment on the new case. Two weeks ago, DeMarinis said the board would push for an expedited hearing in the original lawsuit. The board must certify its ballots by Aug. 31.
The state board of elections has asked that the new lawsuit be moved to Annapolis so the two cases can be heard together, but attorneys for the Dorchester County plaintiffs are opposing that move.
Sen. Stephen S. Hershey Jr. (R-Upper Shore), a plaintiff in the case filed Aug. 6, said he believed the attorneys representing the Dorchester plaintiffs are part of an effort backed by the Maryland Republican Party. Similarly, Mautz said it was his “understanding” that the lawsuit was backed by the party.
The party is chaired by Nicole Beus Harris, wife of Rep. Andy Harris (R-1st), a seven-term member who is the only Republican in the state’s eight-member House delegation.
In an emailed response to questions, Harris, the party chairwoman, said the state part “has been in communication with the plaintiffs of the case filed in Dorchester County. It is not the MDGOP’s case.”
“Dorchester County was selected because the plaintiffs are predominately from the Eastern Shore and they have the right to have their concerns heard on the Eastern Shore,” she said in the statement.
West denied knowledge of who was paying the law firm.
“I don’t know and I really don’t care,” West said. “I care —but not so deeply that I would want to pay the legal fees.”
West said he believed “the legal bill is going to be considerable.”
