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Judicial Watch Analysis: Maryland’s Proposed 2026 Congressional Map Replicates Unconstitutional Gerrymander Previously Struck Down in Judicial Watch Lawsuit

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that a Democrat-proposed 2026 congressional redistricting plan for Maryland is in key respects identical to the unconstitutional gerrymander struck down in a prior Judicial Watch lawsuit—but is even more partisan and less compact than the invalidated 2021 map.

Judicial Watch’s analysis found that the proposed 2026 plan re-creates the same distorted configuration rejected by Judge Lynne A. Battaglia for Maryland’s First Congressional District, which shares 97 percent of the geographic area of the unconstitutional 2021 district. As before, the district again crosses the Chesapeake Bay Bridge to link disparate regions—an arrangement the court previously found unlawful.

The analysis also found that the proposed 2026 plan is less compact than both prior maps under all three compactness measures relied upon by Battaglia in invalidating the 2021 plan—directly violating the Maryland Constitution’s compactness requirement.

Additionally, the proposed redraw substantially increases county and municipal splits compared to the 2022 remedial map—another factor Battaglia cited in concluding the 2021 plan was an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.

Using the widely accepted efficiency gap metric, Judicial Watch also determined that the proposed 2026 map is more partisan than both the 2021 map struck down as unconstitutional and the current 2022 remedial map now in effect.

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