Friday, November 9, 2012
Baltimore County State Sens. Jim Brochin and Delores Kelley and two other lawsuits challenged that the maps were not legally drawn.
The state's highest court has upheld state legislative redistricting maps drawn earlier this year. The one-page ruling does state that the court "determined that the Governor’s plan is consistent with the requirements of the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of Maryland." Details behind the courts decision will be provided at a later date, according to the court ruling. Sens. Jim Brochin and Delores Kelley were involved in one of three suits against the redistricting plan on which the court heard arguments on Wednesday. The Democrats claim the new districts violate the Maryland Constitution and a 2002 Court of Appeals ruling that governs redistricting. The suit alleges that Gov. Martin O'Malley and the General Assembly…
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Committee votes to reject Republican alternative plan and sends Gov. Martin O'Malley's map to the full House.
A committee voted 18-5 along party lines late Tuesday afternoon to send Gov. Martin O'Malley's congressional redistricting plan to the full House of Delegates for a vote. The action by the House Rules Committee sets the stage for preliminary and final votes on Wednesday. The same committee rejected a Republican alternative plan similar to one proposed by Republican Sen. E.J. Pipkin in the Senate. The Senate also rejected Pipkin's plan. The House is expected to reconvene around 5 p.m. Tuesday night and the delay any action on the bill until 10 a.m. Wednesday in order to give Republican lawmakers an opportunity to prepare amendments to the bill. House Speaker Michael Busch said debate on the bill and the amendments could be extended. "It's …
Monday, October 17, 2011
Republicans offer only one amendment in a debate some expected would last until late Monday night.
UPDATED (7:23 p.m.)—A bill redrawing eight congressional districts in Maryland moved one step closer to final passage in the Senate with a 33-13 vote Monday night. The vote, taken nearly an hour after a specially appointed 15-member Senate committee voted late Monday afternoon to approve Gov. Martin O'Malley's plan, was anticlimactic. Republicans offered just one amendment to the bill in a debate that lasted minutes rather than hours. Sen. E.J. Pipkin's amendment would have stripped out O'Malley's plan in favor of Pipkin's, which added a third majority minority district and kept intact the two Republican districts. In the end, the Senate voted 13-33 to kill the amendment. Sen. Jim Brochin, of Towson, was the lone Democrat joining …
African-American voting rights groups, Republicans join to oppose O'Malley plan.
A coalition of African-American voting rights groups and Republicans announced they will oppose Gov. Martin O'Malley's plan to redraw the state's eight congressional districts and warned that they intend to take the issue to court. Carletta Fellows, a spokeswoman for the Fannie Lou Hamer PAC, called O'Malley's plan "institutional racism" and said it violates the federal Voting Rights Act by not creating a third majority minority district. O'Malley's plan, which will have a hearing Monday afternoon, apparently attempts to protect six incumbent Democratic U.S. House members. There would also be changes for a Republican-held district, made up mostly of western Maryland, that would make elections there more competitive by adding part of …
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