By Adam Pagnucco.
Few issues animate Democratic and progressive activists more than voting rights. And more than at any point since the 1960s, voting rights are under attack. President Donald Trump and his right-wing allies tried to launch a coup to keep him in office five years ago and have never ceased their efforts to break America’s electoral system ever since. Democrats everywhere have risen to defend democracy. It’s the one issue on which everyone on Team Blue agrees, right?
Wrong.
That’s because House Democrats in Annapolis are now sabotaging the right of Marylanders to vote in an egregious attempt to protect Maryland’s deplorable boss-driven legislative appointments system. It’s a shocking display of hypocrisy and must not stand.
First, some background. Maryland’s constitution mandates that when members of the General Assembly leave office during their terms, party central committees pick their successors and send them to the governor for appointment. Back in 2023, Common Cause estimated that nearly one-quarter of General Assembly members were originally appointed. That same year, Bethesda Magazine found that 35% of MoCo’s General Assembly members were originally appointed. On many occasions, central committee members have even gotten themselves appointed to the legislature. Virginia instead allows special elections for legislative vacancies. Maryland voters wish they had the same rights as Virginia voters as they have embraced special elections at nearly every opportunity in non-General Assembly elections. A 2023 poll found that 85% of Maryland voters favored special elections to fill legislative vacancies.
Nevertheless, the Iron Law of Oligarchy has prevailed as Maryland’s boss system has proven durable. Many legislators have tried to break it, introducing 20 bills to do so since 2008. Their authors have included Senators Jamie Raskin, Rich Madaleno, Brian Feldman, Clarence Lam and Cheryl Kagan and Delegates David Moon and Linda Foley. Several Republicans have also introduced or co-authored special elections bills including Senator Mike Hough and Delegates Christian Miele, Kevin Hornberger and Neil Parrott. (Yes, that Neil Parrott.) And yet, through last year, the Lords of Annapolis have killed them all. It’s beyond shameful that some Republicans are more interested in protecting voting rights than many Democrats.
This year, with pressure rising to end the boss system, voting rights opponents have come up with a particularly devious way to kill special elections. The device is a dispute over whether Maryland should engage in redistricting to counter Trump’s attempt to gerrymander his way to keeping the U.S. House. Governor Wes Moore and the leadership of the House of Delegates believe the state should redistrict to knock out Maryland’s lone GOP Congressman, the execrable Andy Harris. Senate President Bill Ferguson and most of his caucus believe redistricting is too risky and might backfire, perhaps creating mischief by the courts and maybe even another GOP seat. In a showdown between the two chambers, the Senate has refused to budge.
So the House played a power move, attaching redistricting language to Kagan’s latest special elections bill which had passed the Senate on a 43-1 vote. House leaders knew that redistricting was a non-starter in the Senate but at least they could use that as an excuse to kill special elections. Kagan told Maryland Matters: “I assume that the bill is now dead.” Ferguson confirmed it.
And so for those who prefer boss picks to voting, it’s Mission Accomplished. Backroom deals, cronyism and machine politics flourish while Maryland voters still lack the rights that their cousins in Virginia freely exercise. And yet House leaders continue to decry the anti-democratic tactics of Trump and his MAGA legions.
We reply with a central truth:
You cannot claim to be a defender of democracy while blocking the right of Marylanders to vote.
Congressional redistricting, whatever its merits, has nothing to do with whether Marylanders get to vote for their state legislators. Let’s start by protecting our voting rights with special elections. Let’s proceed with whatever the best path forward on redistricting may be. And let’s finish by securing our franchise everywhere else in the nation. Whatever we do, the rights of political bosses must never rein supreme over the rights of voters.
Now, let us give one last chance to voting opponents to redeem themselves. If they wish to slither out of the stinking swamp of hypocrisy, there is an easy way to do it. They can pass Delegate Linda Foley’s special elections bill, which is identical to Kagan’s but remains bottled up in a House committee. Passing it cleanly would result in easy passage through the Maryland Senate, thereby giving voters a generational win.
Failure to do so makes a mockery of the name “Democrats,” sabotaging democracy to lock in the iron grip of oligarchy.