This article originally appeared in the Sunday Perspective section of the Baltimore Sun on September 28, 1997.
The 1998
gubernatorial race will determine Baltimore’s political future
by Carol A. Arscott
The next census is three years away but the dogfight for dominance in the legislative redistricting process has begun.
Redistricting is every political junkie’s favorite parlor game. As 2000 approaches, the stakes are rising because the Republicans appears to have a chance to elect their first governor since Spiro T. Agnew.
Recently, Larry Gibson, the political strategist for Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke and Prince George’s County Executive Wayne K. Curry, endorsed Harford County Executive Eileen M. Rehrmann in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. Gibson, the Maryland Democratic Party’s premier political organizer, said “a vote for Glendening is a vote for Ellen Sauerbrey,” referring to the likely Republican nominee for the 1998 campaign.
Gibson said he was fearful of a Republican takeover of the General Assembly and the State House. Clearly, Gibson is concerned that Baltimore would lose some of its political strength if redistricting falls into Republican hands.
As Gibson well understands, legislative district lines allocate political power, power that ultimately rests with the voters. The greater the number of legislative districts drawn in your jurisdiction, the greater the number of legislators who will be sent to Annapolis to do your bidding.
Redistricting is a subject the glazes the eyes of people outside of political circles, but it’s something all Marylanders should care about. All manner of mischief occurs when politicians are left to themselves to draw new district lines to reflect population changes. Look at what happened after the 1990 census. The governor, William Donald Schaefer, was a former mayor of Baltimore. Although thousands of people moved out of the city duri8ng the 1980s, enough to shrink the legislative delegation by two senators and six delegates, Schaefer was determined that the city be spared the pain of diminished representation.
This, of course, was impossible to accomplish under existing rules, so the rules were changed so that smaller than average districts could be created in the city.
Once the size of an “ideal” district was determined (a population of 101,733 – Maryland’s total population divided by 47, the number of legislative districts) the governor’s redistricting advisory commission agreed that there could be a 10 percent variance. This allowed for districts to be as small as 96,646 and as large as 106,820, a difference of 10,174. Commission mapmakers then used that variance to create smaller-than-average districts in the city.
But even that was not enough to protect the city’s delegation to the extent that the governor desired. To do that, district lines crossed into Baltimore County to acquire the population to constitute full (albeit smaller-than-average) legislative districts, ultimately giving the city 10 senators, but just five of whom represent city residents only.
Of course, the consequences of smaller-than-average districts didn’t affect Baltimore alone. If the city had more than its share, some place else received less than its share. That place was Central Maryland, where population had grown the most, where there were fewer incumbents – and where the incumbents were Republicans.
Legislative District 14 in Howard County, for example, was drawn with a 1990 population of more than 106,000, at the extreme upper edge of the 10 percent variance. This 1990 figure was woefully out-of-date by the time the districts were adopted in 1992. Ten percent may not seem significant, but over time this policy crated an important difference. While a city district was smaller than average and destined to shrink over the next ten years, this Howard County district was larger than average and destined to grow. Therefore, the disparity in representation – and political power – would only get worse.
Arguments that this “arrangement” violated the one man/one vote principle failed to impress the commission or the courts. But the variance policy seemed especially strange in light of the process employed mere weeks before by the same commission to draw the state'’ eight congressional districts. These of course, are much larger in population but nearly perfect in mathematical equality. The smallest congressional district, based on 1990 census figures, had a population of 597,680 and the largest had 597,690 – a difference of 10. These figures are duly recorded in the Maryland Manual. It’s interesting that the manual doesn’t give population figures for Maryland’s legislative districts.
So where was the outrage? Where was Montgomery County? What about the Republicans?
Well, the Republicans squawked some but had too few votes to be much of a concern. And frankly, most of them, along with their brethren from Montgomery County, were happy enough with their own individual situation that they acquiesced in the master plan.
To be sure, turning a supermajority of legislators into happy campers took some effort. To avert any chance of a legislative mutiny, the governor wisely included the General Assembly’s presiding officers on his five-member redistricting commission, and in turn, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller and then-House Speaker Clayton Mitchell looked out for their cronies. Incumbent legislators were asked to pinpoint their homes on a master map and were, with a few notable exceptions, treated with deference, regardless of party.
The diabolical brilliance of this scheme is that a legislator largely satisfied with his personal situation is unlikely to raise a ruckus about someone else’s problem. This is a fact of political life, an unfortunate one for growing communities. They got the short end of the stick when the last redistricting was completed, and may find themselves in the same position at the start of the next millennium. Growing communities are underrepresented to begin with and tend to elect Republicans, who are less likely to be given due deference under the current system. Conversely, communities with declining populations, usually Democratic power bases, have been protected to the maximum extent permissible under the rules.
Now we’re approaching the turn of the century and despite the fact that Baltimore is losing populations at a faster rate than Maryland is growing, despite the fact that Baltimore is now only the fourth-largest jurisdiction in the state (behind populous Montgomery, Prince George’s and Baltimore counties) and despite the fact that our governor and Senate president hail from the Washington suburbs, it appears that the establishment is gearing up to secure the city’s hegemony in state affairs as we begin the new century.
Against all reason, a March 1996 report by the General Assembly’s Department of Legislative Reference is written with the assumption that the political considerations in 2000 will be identical to those in1990, that all stops will be pulled out to preserve Baltimore’s traditional dominance of the rest of the state.
“Baltimore City apparently will not be able to support more than 7 districts,” wrote Karl S. Aro of the department’s Research Division (recently named by the Assembly’s presiding officers as executive director of the Department of Legislative Services). “To support 7 districts, the City’s districts will have to be configured to be very near –5% variance in population and will have to cross the City-County line.”
But that’s not all – according to the report:
“Baltimore County’s population can support 7 districts, although those districts will have to be configured so as to have an average variance of –4.6%. To the extent that Baltimore City’s districts expand into Baltimore County, Baltimore County may have to expand outward into Harford, Howard and possibly, Carroll counties. Harford County’s estimated population growth, along with the need for Harford to share a district with Cecil County, probably means that its district will be larger than the ideal district and that more of its population will have to be shifted into a district or districts with Baltimore County.” But they’re not alone.
“Even if Montgomery’s districts were made as large as possible,” Aro lamented, “the county’s population will not fit into 7 districts and comply with population standards.” It certainly won’t be easy to keep Baltimore at the center of Maryland’s political universe, but it won’t be for the lack of effort on the part of the powers that be.
In fact, if districts were drawn to be approximately equal in population, like congressional districts are, Baltimore will probably warrant fewer than six districts, while Baltimore County will quality for six and a half.
Of course, political considerations at the turn of the century won’t be identical to those a decade ago. Baltimore is no longer the state’s largest jurisdiction – far from it – and the sleeping giants in the Washington suburbs have awakened in recent years. If Montgomery and Prince George’s counties form alliances with their ex-urban comrades, they can surely force a change.
A Republican governor would simply jettison the best-laid plans of the Democrats in the legislative leadership because a Republican governor would have no interest whatsoever in preserving the city’s legislative influence. Quite the contrary, redistricting represents a golden opportunity to make Maryland a true two-party state. Just letting the legislative lines fall where they belong – no gerrymandering necessary – will help the GOP enormously, perhaps even creating the ability to elect a Republican legislative majority. And with a little partisan tinkering, who knows?
A Democratic governor will have a much harder job, balancing the fears of shrinking population bases in the city against the legitimate concerns of his partisans in surrounding suburbia. It’s hard to believe that Montgomery County will sit back and let Baltimore clean its clock again, but stranger things have happened. If a Democrat is elected governor in 1998, and legislative mapmakers buy off suburban incumbents with districts to their liking as they did after the 1990 census, Baltimore’s traditional dominance of state government could conceivably carry on for another 10 years.