The state of Maryland is a solidly blue state, but that is mostly due to the fact that the state is dominated, population-wise, by Baltimore city and it's suburbs plus the suburbs of Washington, DC. Maryland has eight seats in the House of Representatives, six of them are held by Democrats. That's a four-to-one ratio of Democratic seats to Republican seats. That overstates the ratio of Democrats to Republicans in the state. In fact all the large western counties are solidly Republican, as are most counties on the eastern shore.
But a 4-to-1 ratio isn't good enough for our Democratic Governor, Martin O'Malley. He has plans to gerrymander the state so that seven or even all eight Congressional districts are majority Democratic districts!
No doubt this is in response to the Republican party's apparent policy of redistricting the Congressional districts in all the states they control to eliminate as many Democratic districts as possible. Such a policy is breathtakingly undemocratic and wrong, but that's how Republicans keep their power. That doesn't mean Democrats should stoop to that level.
I was happy to find another Maryland Democrat, Todd Eberly, who teaches at St. Mary's College, who agrees.
I happen to think that much of [Martin] O'Malley's criticism of the GOP and the Tea Party, though a bit hyperbolic, [is] often correct.
Unfortunately for O'Malley, recent events suggest that he is every bit as partisan and unconcerned with the health of our democracy as are the Republicans he so often criticizes.
As reported by the Washington Post, O'Malley's Redistricting Commission appears to have settled on two possible options for redrawing Maryland's congressional districts... Each map represents no less than an assault on the very concept of democratic representation. Each map represents an act of puerile political cowardice drawn for the express purpose of suppressing the will of the people in the state of Maryland.
With these maps Governor O'Malley appears ready to embrace divisiveness and political gamesmanship with one goal and one goal only and that is to help Democrats reclaim the House of Representatives in 2012 - even if it means effectively disenfranchising four in ten Marylanders and risking our country's future by exacerbating the problem of polarized politics.
Simply stated, the O'Malley plans (as reported by the Washington Post) seek to alter Maryland's current Congressional delegation of six Democrats and two Republicans and create a delegation that is seven Democrats to one Republican, or, under a particularly egregious plan, eight Democrats.
Maryland Republicans are people and American citizens too, and they make up about 40% of the state. They deserve a voice and representation in Congress, and when you stomp all over their rights you silence their voice, and they often withdraw from politics altogether, or become angry tea partiers.
This extreme gerrymandering is wrong and as a Maryland citizen, I strongly oppose it.
--Trakker
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