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Maryland’s special session is focused on redistricting, but lawmakers hope to jam other bills onto the agenda 9%
By Jabamu9%
7/31/2026, 10:25:27 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 20 faulty reasoning types, including Ambiguity (Equivocation), Post Hoc (False Cause), and Optimism Bias, with Availability Heuristic as the most egregious example at 10.7% saturation with 116 hits. Analysis detected 902 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,080 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 20.8% and a BS Rank of 9% (23,731 of 26,004 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 91.30% of the article peer group.
In Montgomery County, one of the more reliable routes to a seat in the Maryland General Assembly is an appointment.
Take District 16, which covers parts of Bethesda and Chevy Chase.
That district has 3 delegates and one senator.
In January 2023, then-Senator Susan Lee resigned to become secretary of state under Governor Wes Moore.
Her resignation led to four appointments in the span of about a year and a half .
Marc Korman is the only representative in the district that was elected to the seat he currently holds.
District 16 Movements
Elected Nov.
2022.
Left Jan. 2023 to become secretary of state.
Appointed Feb.
2023.
Left May 2024 to lead the Commission for Women.
Appointed June 2024.
Elected Nov.
2022.
Moved up to the Senate seat 2023.
Appointed April 2023.
Elected Nov.
2022.
Moved up to the Senate seat 2024.
Teresa Saavedra Woorman
Appointed Aug.
2024.
Elected Nov.
2022.
Still holds the seat.
It is the example political insiders keep mentioning when challenging the appointment system, which has been in place since 1936.
The general rule is when a delegate or senator leaves office mid-term, the departing member’s local party central committee recommends a replacement, and the governor makes the appointment.
Because General Assembly terms run four years, someone appointed early in a term can serve most of it before facing an electorate.
By then, they are often strong incumbents.
Voters know their name, and they have an edge in the next election.
A proposed amendment to the Maryland Constitution would change that for some of those vacancies, letting voters decide at the next regular election instead of waiting until the next full four-year cycle.
It has cleared the state Senate but has never ended up on the ballot.
And when lawmakers return to Annapolis on Aug. 3 for a three-day special session, the measure may be on the table again.
How we got to the special session
The General Assembly is meeting to consider a constitutional amendment governing how Maryland draws its congressional district lines.
A 2022 court ruling put limits on how Maryland can draw congressional maps.
This amendment would lift them.
If three-fifths of each chamber approves (29 in the Senate and 85 in the House), the question goes to voters on the November ballot.
It would not produce a new map this year.
The earliest a redrawn map could be in place is in 2028.
This whole process is unusual.
Congressional lines are normally redrawn once a decade, after the census.
But a flurry of redistricting was set off by President Donald Trump’s push for Republican-led states, starting with Texas , to redraw their maps mid-decade to protect the party’s house majority.
For months, Senate President Bill Ferguson, a Baltimore City Democrat, resisted calls for Maryland to draw out the state’s lone Republican district, arguing that a new map would create an immediate legal challenge and that a court could draw a less favorable map than the current one.
Maryland Democrats hold seven of the state’s eight congressional seats.
Representative Andy Harris of Maryland’s First District is the lone Republican.
And for a moment Ferguson’s caution seemed vindicated.
The nation sat on the edge of their seats as Virginia Democrats put a mid-decade redistricting amendment to voters in April, won narrowly, and then watched the Supreme Court of Virginia void the result in May over a technical oversight, costing Democrats four new seats.
Still, the pressure on Ferguson escalated.
Governor Wes Moore made mid-decade redistricting a signature push.
U.S.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries pressed Maryland publicly and traveled to Annapolis.
In May, Moore released a slate of over 160 General Assembly endorsements that pointedly did not include Ferguson, who was facing a significant primary challenge.
But what Ferguson says changed his view on this was the U.S.
Supreme Court’s ruling weakening the Voting Rights Act.
Now General Assembly members are returning to Annapolis for a special session meant to be strictly focused on this issue.
Why the special elections bill may be jammed in
Though lawmakers have discussed introducing bills on issues ranging from affordability to data centers, senators currently expect the only additional measure to be a constitutional amendment on filling General Assembly vacancies.
Despite its title, “ Special Election to Fill a Vacancy in Office ,” the proposal would not necessarily create a new standalone election.
Instead, it would allow voters to choose a replacement at the next regularly scheduled election if a vacancy occurs early enough in a legislative term, rather than waiting until the next full election cycle, creating an opportunity about every two years.
Vacancies that occur later in a term would continue to be filled through the current appointment process.
The bill was originally sponsored by Montgomery County Senator Cheryl Kagan, a Democrat.
“For many years now, the Senate has passed virtually unanimously a constitutional amendment that would put the power back with the voters if there are vacancies in the Senate or House,” Kagan said in an interview with WAMU.
Supporters argue the current system hands too much power to a small group of party insiders and the process is simply not democratic enough.
There’s also the issue of incumbent advantage.
Once appointed, a new member gains the experiences that make them harder to beat in general election cycles, including a voting record, a fundraising base, and name recognition.
But opponents of the bill say the system is not broken so why fix it.
Central committee members are elected themselves and entrusted with this job, they argue, and appointments preserve continuity between sessions.
During the 2026 legislative session earlier this year, the Senate overwhelmingly passed Kagan’s bill, leaving good governance advocates hopeful.
A House committee then attached congressional redistricting language onto it, in an effort to push forward an issue they strongly wanted Ferguson to bring up for a vote.
Ferguson, who was still dug in against redistricting, let the bill die when the session ended in April.
But with both redistricting and special elections requiring constitutional amendments that need to go before voters in November, senators are hopeful that this bill will be brought up for a vote and pass.
If it doesn’t, it could be years before the topic is picked up again.
The post Maryland’s special session is focused on redistricting, but lawmakers hope to jam other bills onto the agenda appeared first on WAMU .
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