As I posted last week, I jumped back into the political waters last week by attending a couple of local elected officials' fundraisers. But, just attending something isn't enough if you didn't gain something from the experience. And I did! And lucky you, I want to share!
I bet you're thinking that this post is going to be about who's running for what in 2014. No it isn't. To be honest, I'm not exactly sure if those individuals' intentions are well-kept secrets.
More interesting to me are the redrawing of the lines for state and county legislative districts. Of specific interest to me are the state legislative lines in Howard County-- will Howard County get a second three-member district contained entirely within it's borders, or won't it?
For those who are uninitiated, a map of the current legislative districts can be found here. It's a cool map. Districts 9 and 12 are split with Carroll and Baltimore Counties, respecively, and District 13 lies entirely within Howard County. The map also shows that District 9 (especially subdistrict 9A, which lies entirely within Howard County) has enjoyed much greater population growth than District 13 or District 12.
Now let's look at this in political terms. District 9 is solidly Republican, District 13 is solidly Democratic, District 12 is much more Democratic leaning. All four of District 12's legislators are Democrats-- Senator Kasemeyer, Delegates Malone and Deboy in the Baltimore-Howard District 12A and Delegate Bobo in the all-HoCo 12B.
For there to be two fully-self contained Districts in Howard County, 12 would have to absorb a lot of 9, it would appear. Perhaps so much so as to ensure the election of at least one Republican Delegate from the district? I don't see that happening.
But here's something disturbing. Districts in Baltimore City are losing population. So they either need to be consolidated or expanded out into Baltimore County. Which means Baltimore County Districts have to expand into new places. So, without any science behind this, and assuming that Baltimore City loses a legislative district (which I think should happen, but who knows how the political widns on this one blow?) Here's what I'd like to see:
District 13 stay more or less the same
District 12 expanded into a three-member district and include the part of 9A that lies east of 29 (Worthington. downtown Ellicott City, most of the Mt. Hebron school District)
District 9 pushed out further into western Howard
My one uncertainty in this is what happens in the Baltimore County portion of 12-- are Delegates Malone and Deboy pushed out? I'd prefer that not happen. But should Baltimore City not lose a legislative District, this whole thing could get shaken up.
This is something that warrants a lot of further examination over time. Much more on this topic in the future!