House Sets Vote for Congressional Redistricting Plan
Committee votes to reject Republican alternative plan and sends Gov. Martin O'Malley's map to the full House.
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A committee voted 18-5 along party lines late Tuesday afternoon to send Gov. Martin O'Malley's congressional redistricting plan to the full House of Delegates for a vote.
The action by the House Rules Committee sets the stage for preliminary and final votes on Wednesday.
The same committee rejected a Republican alternative plan similar to one proposed by Republican Sen. E.J. Pipkin in the Senate. The Senate also rejected Pipkin's plan.
The House is expected to reconvene around 5 p.m. Tuesday night and the delay any action on the bill until 10 a.m. Wednesday in order to give Republican lawmakers an opportunity to prepare amendments to the bill.
House Speaker Michael Busch said debate on the bill and the amendments could be extended.
"It's going to be a long day," Busch said, adding that he hoped to complete work on the bill by early afternoon.
The action by the House of Delegates comes after the Senate voted 33-13 to approve O'Malley's proposed redistricting plan.
stein
3:49 pm on Wednesday, October 19, 2011
The official name for this type of elitiist behavior is "gerrymandering". If I am not mistaken, this was first practiced back in the South when the Democrats decided that the votes of the Blacks must be discounted. Now, the Democrats feel that the votes of the citizens must be discounted.
Killi Macklin
11:12 am on Friday, December 9, 2011
Please pick up a history book and realize that today's Republicans are yesteryear's Democrats and if they maintain a registration as a Democrat down south, they are what media refers to as "Dixiecrats." Stop pretending that political philosophies don't change overtime and that Republicans maintain the same ideologies that they did in 1880.
CB9678
4:16 pm on Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Gerrymandering was around before blacks could vote. It was 1812!
Eric Martin
8:27 pm on Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Gerrymandering was named for Elbridge Gerry, the Governor of Massachusetts at the time of the War of 1812. The meandering districts proposed and adopted by Gov Gerry had nothing to do with the votes of blacks. Voters were limited to male property owners. Since there were few black property owners, this really had little effect on black citizens. You are mixing this up with the three-fifths clause of the federal Constitution, which was adopted so that the slave states would have less representation in Congress. Only 3 slaves out of five were counted for representation in Congress in order to dilute the influence of slaveowners in Congress. The mistaken argument that blacks were only counted as three-fifths of a person is not true, but widely believed by a public that is ignorant of Constitutional history.
LK
10:55 pm on Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Maryland Open Meetings Law Compliance Board
The Open Meetings Law Compliance Board's annual meeting is scheduled for October 26, 2011, 10:30 a.m. at the Attorney General's Office, 200 Saint Paul Place, Baltimore, Maryland, 21202 - 19th Floor Sachs Conference Room. If you plan to attend, please e-mail opengov@oag.state.md.us or call Kathy Izdebski at (410) 576-6327.
Killi Macklin
11:15 am on Friday, December 9, 2011
Whining and complaining on message boards is a greater waste of time, Sean. If you had any backbone or real fire in your stomach about this as you feign online, you'd go out and do something about it.
However, since you freely admit that to you "following politics" is a waste of time, I guess that means you are either 1) wasting your time, or 2) abiding by your word and not following politics. If you are indeed the latter, why should I care about your opinion if you don't follow it and therefore have no idea what's going on?
In short, shut up.
Robert Armstrong
11:30 am on Friday, December 9, 2011
I live in that goofball Andy Harris's district and so does my buddy who lives on Kent Island. Who drew up this district? It certainly wasn't a Democrat.