Some Maryland Democrats are making a late push to revive a backup plan for redrawing the state’s congressional districts in hopes of giving Democrats a chance to sweep all eight seats in future elections.

Democrats in the House of Delegates are advancing a measure that would ask voters to sign off on changing the state constitution to clarify rules about redistricting. The change would specify that congressional districts are not required to be compact or respect existing boundaries like county lines.

That provision was cited by a state judge in her ruling throwing out a previous batch of redistricting maps in 2022. House Democrats said the change they are pushing would, if approved by voters, give the party a free hand in drawing new districts in the future.

“It makes sense for us to clarify this confusion once and for all with the clarification to the state constitution,” said Del. David Moon, a Montgomery County Democrat and the House majority leader.

The House tacked the constitutional change onto another bill that would set up special elections for when there are vacancies in the General Assembly. House Democratic leaders believe their maneuver complies with a rule requiring bills to cover only a single subject, though that’s been called into question by Republicans.

The revised bill is pending in the House of Delegates and is scheduled to be taken up by the full House on Thursday.

But even if it passes the House, it faces steep odds in the Senate, where Democratic leadership has opposed any effort to join the cascade of states drawing new congressional boundaries to favor one party or another.

Both chambers would have to pass the bill in order to send it to Gov. Wes Moore for his consideration.

Moore supports the House effort, according to a spokesman.

“The House of Delegates put forward compromise legislation that addresses many of the legal concerns around mid-cycle redistricting,” Moore spokesman Ammar Moussa said in a statement.

The Democratic governor’s team previously floated the idea of a “plan B” for redistricting after a Senate committee bottled up a new map Moore supported.

Maryland currently sends seven Democrats and one Republican to the U.S. House of Representatives, and many have their eye on the Eastern Shore-based district of Republican Rep. Andy Harris.

Senate President Bill Ferguson told reporters that revisiting redistricting is not among the Senate’s priorities in the final couple weeks of their annual session.

“We’ve got a lot of huge issues, and that’s what we’re going to prioritize,” said Ferguson, a Baltimore Democrat.

He suggested there’s not support in the 47-member Senate to approve the constitutional change.

“It takes 29 votes to break a filibuster here in the Senate,” Ferguson said.

It’s unclear where many senators stand on redistricting issues. A Banner survey of Senators in February confirmed that enough senators opposed the bill to prevent its passage, but 19 Democratic senators did not take a clear position.

House leaders think they can change some minds.

Moon thinks it’s “a very reasonable ask” and said he’s already spoken to a few senators who he thinks will support it.

“Until the presiding officers gavel us out on Sine Die, we have from now until then to work this thing out,” Moon said, referring to the planned adjournment on April 13.

Sen. Cheryl Kagan thinks otherwise. She’s the sponsor of the bill that the House tacked the redistricting issue onto. She said she won’t support the new version of her bill.

If that’s how the bill is sent back to the Senate, Kagan said, “the bill will be dead.”

“I’m not the president, I’m not in charge, but we’ve been clear that the Senate is not going to vote on redistricting,” said Kagan, a Montgomery County Democrat. She said the General Assembly is “long past the point of redistricting.”

Kagan expressed disappointment that her effort to require special elections for delegate and senator vacancies will likely fail now that it would be bound up with redistricting. She said voters support the change for special elections rather than party insiders making appointments.

“It is what it is,” she said. “They say that legislating is making sausage. This is the underbelly of making sausage.”