Maryland Democrats have gotten national pressure to redraw the boundaries of the state’s Congressional districts to benefit their party.

The state has yet to act, and a big deadline — candidate filing — looms next month. Is there time enough for Democrats to redistrict?

Unsurprisingly, Democrats who support redistricting say there’s time, those who oppose it say there’s not.

House of Delegates Speaker Joseline Peña-Melnyk: “We can make time.”

Senate President Bill Ferguson: “I think that time has already run out.”

Gov. Wes Moore: “It’s deeply disingenuous to say we’ve somehow run out of time.”

The reality is that the clock is ticking to draw a new map, settle legal challenges, assign voters to their districts, print ballots and run the primary election, currently scheduled for June.

The current deadline for candidates to file to run for office is Feb. 24, and prospective candidates will need to know the district boundaries to decide where to run.

Vote-by-mail ballots are sent to voters staring May 9, followed by early in-person voting starting on June 11 and traditional Election Day on June 23.

If the map is in flux and court challenges are pending, those deadlines could be in jeopardy.

Ferguson, a Baltimore Democrat who opposes mid-cycle redistricting, said he’s been advised by lawyers that the all-but-certain court challenges to any new map would take at least 100 to 120 days in the first run through court — “not to mention an eventual appeal to the Supreme Court of Maryland.”

“So we’ve already crossed through the window of what is feasible,” he said.

That’s in line with what happened last time Maryland had a contested redistricting battle, in 2021-22, following the 2020 Census.

From the passage of a new map to the resolution of a court case, that process took 106 days.

During that round of regularly-planned redistricting, the General Assembly approved new Congressional boundaries on Dec. 9, 2021. Two lawsuits were filed by Dec. 23, 2021.

As the lawsuits were considered in an Anne Arundel County Court, the state’s highest court pushed the candidate filing deadline back from February until March, and then pushed the primary election itself from June until July.

It took until March 25 for the Anne Arundel County judge to throw out the map because it represented “extreme partisan gerrymandering.”

That ruling could have been appealed, but lawmakers opted to draw a new map that’s still in place today and has never been contested in court.

Democrats hold seven of the state’s eight seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

That’s not enough for some Democrats, who hope to redraw the maps to increase the chances of an 8-0 Democratic sweep in this year’s election. Their eyes are set on the Eastern Shore-based 1st Congressional District, held by Republican U.S. Rep. Andy Harris since 2011.

Moore, a Democrat, set up a redistricting advisory commission chaired by one of his top political allies that he charged with recommending whether to pursue a new map. The commission held its final public input meeting on Thursday, but it’s unclear if or when they’ll vote on a map.

Moore said he won’t get ahead of the commission and he won’t make their map one of his top priority bills in this General Assembly session. The governor is sponsoring bills aimed at boosting housing and improving the state’s economy.

He insists there’s time to redistrict, too.

“I mean, the last maps were done at the end of March,” Moore said in an interview.

“I would hope that the General Assembly understands that it’s never too late to fight for democracy,” he added.

Peña-Melnyk, a Prince George’s County Democrat in her first full session as speaker, said she won’t prejudge the redistricting commission’s outcome, either. And she’s acknowledged that mid-cycle redistricting isn’t ideal.

But if the commission has a recommendation worth pursuing, “we always make time,” she said.

Even if a new congressional district map is fast-tracked through the legislature, the process still takes time: Each chamber would hold committee hearings, committee votes and full floor debates and votes.

Passage is not assured, given opposition from Ferguson and what he says is the majority of the Senate.

If the House approves a new map, Ferguson could send the measure to a committee where it could sit without action.

Ferguson hasn’t tipped his hand on his strategy. But if the Senate stalls, the chamber could run out the clock.

“The risks with moving forward are even more challenging now,” Ferguson told reporters, given the candidate filing deadline is only a few weeks away.

“Even if something were to happen tomorrow, it would disrupt and there would be no chance of having the filing deadline on Feb. 24, which would then push the election even further back later into the summer and potentially into where we’d have a problem sending overseas ballots” for the general election, he said.

The Senate president said he’s more focused on the needs of Marylanders than achieving national political goals.

“Now I think we have to really focus in on delivering for Marylanders on issues that we know that matter, pass the policies that we know are going to protect Marylanders against the lawless Trump administration,” Ferguson said. “And then help to flip districts where we can.”

Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, also are opposed to redistricting, though they don’t have the numbers to derail new maps.

Sen. Stephen Hershey, the Republican leader in that chamber, expects the House might quickly pass a new map, but doesn’t think it will get any attention in the Senate.

“It’s just not the right thing to do,” he said. “That’s not how you do it. You redistrict every 10 years. You don’t do mid-cycle redistricting.”

Whether a new map is passed or not, House Republican leader Del. Jason Buckel said his party will propose comprehensive redistricting reform. Their bill would ban mid-cycle redistricting, prohibit partisan map-drawing and set up a multi-partisan commission to propose district boundaries after each Census.

“The redistricting process in Maryland is broken,” Buckel said.

Correction: This article has been updated to correct the candidate filing deadline. The deadline is Feb. 24.

Banner reporters Brenda Wintrode, Lee O. Sanderlin and Madeleine O’Neill contributed to this report.