The ‘Patapsco Pterodactyl’ formed as part of a Democratic push to oust Republicans through redistricting
Democrats nationwide are supporting Texas lawmakers who fled the state to block a GOP-led mid-cycle redistricting vote — a sharp contrast to their stance a decade ago, when Maryland Democrats faced little criticism for a plan that nearly wiped out every Republican congressional seat.
After the Old Line State lost a congressional seat in the 2010 census, Annapolis was tasked with drawing new lines for the now-eight remaining, and then-Gov. Martin O’Malley ultimately testified about his eagerness to box-out the GOP.
While overwhelmingly Democratic, Maryland features conservative strongholds at its geographic extremes — the Western Panhandle and Eastern Shore — and a smattering of Republican-majority communities throughout the more densely-populated center of the state.
One of the newly-drawn seats — the 3rd District represented by then-Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Md., — resembled what Fourth Circuit federal Judge Paul Niemeyer called a “broken-winged pterodactyl, lying prostrate across Maryland.”