Category: congressional districts

Frederick County state senator joins field of GOP candidates waiting to find out if Bartlett retires.

By Doug Tallman
December 4, 2011

Though Rep. Roscoe Bartlett represents the 6th congressional district as it exists, the new boundaries could turn the seat over to the Democrats, a potential Republican candidate said Saturday.

“At this point in time I think it’s in jeopardy of being lost, and I don’t want Nancy Pelosi as speaker again,” state Sen. David Brinkley said.

Brinkley announced last week he had formed an exploratory committee to gauge a bid for the 6th district seat.

The district’s current boundaries stretch from Backbone Mountain in Garrett County to the Susquehanna River east of Baltimore, concentrating many of the state’s Republican precincts.

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Legislating across borders difficult, but not impossible, lawmakers say

by Sarah Breitenbach, Staff Writer

ANNAPOLIS — As legislators prepare to address the shape of political districts, they are hearing a common refrain from the few citizens who populate public hearings on the topic: Don’t divide communities.

Opponents of the current congressional map say the districts snake around the state in shapes even a salamander couldn’t fit into, grouping unlikely communities under the same representative. The committee tasked with making redistricting recommendations also is hearing the court-drawn state legislative districts disenfranchise communities by drawing boundaries down the middle of cul-de-sacs and across county lines.

“What we’ve done with our maps is we’ve made Maryland into the Balkans,” said William H. Campbell, a Howard County resident who spoke at the redistricting hearing Tuesday evening in Columbia. “We have Croats and Serbs and Bosnians and Slovenians, and because of that I think the politicians feel they have carte blanche to do and say as they please.”

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