Harford County, Maryland, says that only members of parties that got at least 15% of the votes in the last council election may put a member on the committee that draws new boundaries for council districts after a census. Because the Democratic Party did not contest half the races, and did not do very well in the races it did contest, it only polled 12% of the vote in the last election. Therefore only Republicans will draw the new district boundaries.
The Baltimore Sun has this letter to the editor from Brian Bittner, chair of the Maryland Green Party, expressing some thoughts about that.
P.R. in all regimes.
NO need for any party hack gerrymander committees.
The letter was well spoken. One would have thought that those two party friends would have unlocked the door and allowed the Democrats in as often happens when one party gets itself in access trouble. A number of years ago when the Democrats failed to maintain ballot status by not running a statewide candidate in one of the eastern states. The problems was simply fixed in the next legislative session by both parties. I don’t remember the state off hand.
It was Virginia, when the Democrats didn’t run any statewide nominees in 1990.
Party hacks in MD much worse than in other States — by being too close to the DC robot party hacks ???
Thanks. For some reason one of the more northern states came to mind.