How did Maryland's 2022 redistricting change congressional district boundaries?
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Executive summary
Maryland’s General Assembly enacted new congressional districts in SB 1012 on March 30–April 4, 2022 after a judge struck down the earlier map as an “extreme partisan gerrymander,” producing a remedial map signed by Gov. Larry Hogan for use in the 2022 elections [1] [2] [3]. The new plan adjusted several districts — most notably the 6th (became more competitive by shifting parts of Montgomery and Frederick counties) and the 5th and 1st (kept strongly Democratic or became more conservative in parts), and was the subject of litigation and multiple court rulings before final adoption [4] [5] [3] [2].
1. How the 2022 map came to be: a scramble after a court rebuke
A circuit court judge threw out Maryland’s initially enacted congressional plan in March 2022, calling it an extreme partisan gerrymander and ordering the legislature to draw a new map; the legislature did so, the state withdrew an appeal, and Gov. Hogan signed the remedial plan into law on April 4, 2022 so the maps could be used in the 2022 elections [2] [3] [1]. Reporting and legal trackers show the new SB 1012 congressional plan was advanced quickly in a compressed timetable after the court’s ruling [1] [3].
2. Major boundary changes and competitive effects
The remedial map made substantive swaps in county composition that altered partisan balance in some districts. The 6th District lost a portion of heavily Democratic Montgomery County and gained more Republican-leaning parts of Frederick County, making it markedly more competitive than under the prior configuration [4]. Ballotpedia and other contemporaneous reporting flagged that several districts saw consequential realignments that changed their Cook- or election-based partisan metrics — for example the 5th remained strongly Democratic under the new plan, while some districts in Western and the Eastern Shore shifted toward more conservative mixes [5] [4].
3. Who drew the map and what rules were invoked
The General Assembly’s Legislative Redistricting Advisory Commission (LRAC) produced recommended plans that the Democratic-led legislature adopted; the legislature’s maps were informed by state redistricting criteria and a Maryland law process that adjusts census data under the “No Representation Without Population Act” [6] [7]. Courts in 2022 applied Maryland constitutional criteria (compactness, contiguity, respect for political subdivisions) to congressional maps, prompting the remedial redraw [2] [3].
4. Litigation and judicial signals that shaped the final lines
Litigation drove the timeline and content: petitioners challenged the legislature’s initial congressional plan; a circuit judge’s March 25 opinion instructed lawmakers to apply state redistricting principles to congressional districts and struck down the plan as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander, producing the remedial map that the parties and governor then accepted [2] [8] [3]. Some observers and court documents signaled that this cycle could influence future reform debates about commissions and map criteria [3] [2].
5. How the changes translated into electoral consequences
Analysts and local politicians described the 6th as a clear example of electoral consequence: by moving some Montgomery County precincts out and bringing in more of Frederick County’s electorate, the district shifted from safely Democratic toward a narrow Democratic lean, producing a more competitive 2022 contest [4]. Ballotpedia and electoral analyses reported that the 5th remained strongly Democratic (Biden 67.4% by one re-calculation) and that district-level partisan indexes changed in line with these boundary moves [5].
6. Transparency, data sources and where to see the lines
Official maps, GIS layers, and the enacted SB 1012 text are archived with the Maryland Department of Planning, the General Assembly’s redistricting pages, and state open-data map services; interactive and downloadable 2022 congressional shapefiles are publicly available from those state repositories [9] [10] [11]. Media outlets and projects such as FiveThirtyEight and state legislative sites published side-by-side maps and analyses comparing the 2012–2020 and 2022 boundaries [12] [13].
Limitations and competing views
Sources disagree on emphasis: Democratic leaders argued the remedial map was constitutional and fair and many Democrats supported it in the legislature, while plaintiffs and Republicans labeled the earlier and in some cases the remedial maps partisan; courts intervened on constitutional grounds related to Maryland criteria [3] [2] [1]. Available sources do not mention precise precinct-by-precinct vote swings for every district; for those granular impacts, the official GIS files (MDP/open data) and precinct-level election returns are the primary materials [9] [11].
Bottom line
The 2022 Maryland congressional redistricting cycle ended with a court-forced redraw that produced SB 1012, signed into law April 4, 2022. The most consequential practical effect was to recombine and shuffle county pieces — notably in the 6th — producing at least one district that became more competitive, while most districts remained aligned with the state’s Democratic tilt; the process was legally contested and has fed ongoing debates about redistricting rules and commissions [2] [4] [3].