A surging minority population and shrinking number of white conservatives in Washington’s Maryland suburbs could dramatically change how the region is represented in Congress.
Several powerful state Democrats have privately begun to line up in favor of a plan to carve up the region anew, anchoring four House members — or half the state’s congressional delegation — in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, where minorities now make up majorities.
A surging population led by African Americans and Hispanics could change the Maryland suburbs.
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The move, as outlined by sources familiar with the plan, could force a growing number of Hispanics and other reliably Democratic voters in affluent Montgomery into an unfamiliar role. Much as Prince George’s has long been split so that African American voters bolster Democratic candidates’ chances elsewhere, Montgomery would be divided to help the party conquer the state’s longtime Republican-held western flank.
Communities along the Interstate 270 corridor, such as Gaithersburg and Rockville, would be lumped into the far-flung 6th Congressional District, which stretches roughly 200 miles to the West Virginia border.
But even before the plan gets off the ground, some in Montgomery and Prince George’s are pushing back, saying the congressional redistricting that state lawmakers will vote on this fall should first correct local and racial boundaries compromised 10 years ago when lawmakers last sliced up the two counties in an effort to replace a Republican member of Congress with a Democratic one in the 8th District.
Critics charge that redistricting after the 2000 Census left Maryland’s 4th Congressional District, which cuts through more suburbs surrounding the nation’s capital than any other, with a split personality.
Designed after the 1990 Census to be the nation’s first majority-black suburban House district, the 4th has since morphed into something else, they say. Now represented by Rep. Donna F. Edwards, the district connects inner-Beltway black communities in southern and central Prince George’s with farmland near Frederick, and it bisects the region’s most populous Hispanic community along the way.
“It really has been gerrymandered too much,” said Del. Ana Sol Gutierrez (D-Montgomery).
“You cannot make the case that the extreme ends of Montgomery should be connected all the way down to where she lives. They are really totally different communities,” Gutierrez said, referring to Edwards’s home in southern Prince George’s, about 55 miles from the district’s northern reach.
Of any further splitting of Montgomery, Gutierrez, who is especially worried about fair representation for Hispanics, said: “I’m afraid it won’t be best for minorities, but it will be best for the party. They’re using Montgomery to correct problems elsewhere, and I think there needs to be a different analysis of what’s best for constituents.”
Ahead of the only planned public hearing on redistricting in Montgomery, scheduled for Wednesday night in Rockville, Gutierrez is one of a few elected officials from the county who have publicly criticized the proposal to split it.
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