Streeter: When it comes to redistricting, turnabout is fair play

In a special session last week, Maryland lawmakers approved an amendment to the state constitution that would allow for the possibility of redistricting. That change will now be in the hands of voters this fall.

To quote Lizzo, it’s about damn time.

It’s already facing a legal challenge to block it, but it’s the kind of big move that other states, such as red Louisiana and blue California, have made — a drastic, blaring, red-siren tactic you take when it’s all on the line. President Donald Trump himself began pushing for redistricting to keep the Republican majority in the House.

So many people in this country are facing disenfranchisement, and the Trump administration, with baseless claims of election fraud, is openly pushing to remove voting rights from people, particularly Black people, who vote against it. The checks and balances we learned about in eighth grade government class have been ignored and knocked off their supports.

To bring balance back, everything is on the line and turnabout is fair play. Bring it on.

“All I ever asked for was that we cannot have inaction,” said Gov. Wes Moore, who signed the amendment and has been a vocal supporter. “This is happening in broad daylight.”

It’s clear that Maryland has been a target of this presidential administration, not just in being among the states with the largest losses of federal jobs since 2025 but in the loss of, say, disaster and energy funds because our voters didn’t support Trump.

“I don’t think it. I know it,” Moore said of the state being targeted. “It’s been verified. There is data.”

This vote to have more flexibility in drawing congressional districts is not about spite or waving signs. This isn’t high school. It’s about our perilous ability to exist as full citizens.

“It’s not lost on me that, as I stand here as the country’s only Black governor, I see this assault on voting rights, and truly we have an obligation,” Moore said. He compared this to a realization he had marching across Selma, Alabama’s Edmund Pettus Bridge this year to commemorate 1965’s Bloody Sunday protest. “We got a chance to think about what people were willing to do in order for us to have voting rights.”

It’s that serious. This election, and the purposeful destruction of opportunities for people and places who don’t fall in line with the current administration, isn’t just some rote difference of opinion, like about pizza toppings or taxes.

It’s about taking the gloves off and playing the game like everyone else.

I was disappointed that Maryland won’t have those possible new districts going into the midterms, because that would really be helpful. But state Sen. Arthur Ellis, who in February staged a one-man protest in the Senate chamber to push the conversation, said it was “better late than never. These challenges will continue for the near future.”

I understand it might seem unfair to consider eliminating the 1st Congressional District, Maryland’s sole red area, represented by Rep. Andy Harris, who is up for reelection this year. He wrote on his Facebook page that Moore didn’t have to publicly “sign the amendment going to referendum. He’s just doing it for the photo-op disenfranchising the Eastern Shore for his Presidential campaign.”

Ellis disagrees that anyone’s being disenfranchised, reminding me that the state very recently elected Republican governors, so residents of every affiliation “can really engage and say ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’ No one in Maryland is losing a voice, losing any right or representation.”

Well, the voters in that district, and any district here and nationwide facing splintering or disappearing, certainly must feel strongly otherwise. And Harris, who is in danger of being redistricted out of a job, certainly has a point about him at least potentially losing power.

So is it unfair? “I would say that I don’t see how democracy isn’t fair,” Moore said. “We’re putting it in front of the people.”

Well then! The new plan is not without risks. Senate President Bill Ferguson co-authored a column in the Afro News with state Sens. Antonio L. Hayes and Mary L. Washington expressing concern that the redrawing might dilute Baltimore’s solidly Black representation. The piece referred to how Virginia voters approved new districts that favored Democrats, only to be overturned by that state’s Supreme Court.

“We will not hand Donald Trump that outcome here. And we will not buy a national victory by weakening Baltimore,” the Afro piece explained.

Hopefully that doesn’t happen here, because I think a rising tide of democracy raises all votes. Ellis said what’s happening in Maryland is important to the national discussion of fighting disenfranchisement.

“We are not an island. We do not stand alone,” he said. He pointed to California, “who said to voters, ‘This is a national emergency. We understand the urgency of now, and the moment,’ and the voters did that.”

No one really knows what’s going to happen in the midterms, if voters are going to go for this. I think they will. They have to do something.

“History has shown us what happens when we’re watching this assault on our values and people are too scared to ask. It gets worse,” Moore said. “It doesn’t stop.”

And neither can we.