Skewed Congressional Districts
September 14, 2011 at 9:11 AM
By BLAIR POTTER
Testimony before the Governor's Redistricting Advisory Committee
September 10, 2011
Good afternoon. My name is Blair Potter, I am a Democrat, and I live in Talbot County.
A recent editorial in the Washington Post noted that districts skewed in favor of one political party or the other contribute to hyper-partisanship in Congress and thus to political paralysis of the sort we are witnessing in Washington now.
We in the first district have some understanding of politically skewed districts and their effects on the federal government. Unlike most other congressional districts in Maryland, ours is heavily skewed in favor of Republican candidates.
That situation needs to change. District 1 needs to be brought into balance.
How should it be done?
There are numerous possibilities, but every single one of them requires adding over 270,000 people to the nine Eastern Shore counties that form the core of the first district.
Where should those additional people come from? Today, District 1 includes parts of Harford, Baltimore, and Anne Arundel counties; 20 years ago, it reached into Calvert, Charles, and St Mary's counties.
Should the reconfigured District 1 extend farther into Harford County? Should it expand beyond its current boundaries in Anne Arundel County into neighboring regions? Or should it extend across the bay into parts of Southern Maryland, as it did years ago?
These are matters for the Advisory Committee to decide, and many factors besides geography come into play in making that decision. But primary among those factors must be fairness to voters—and to candidates.
So ultimately, it doesn't matter exactly how District 1 is reconfigured—as long as it is drawn fairly and it gives a Democratic candidate a reasonable chance of winning.
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