Maryland Democrats are moving closer to removing the state's only House Republican after the state Supreme Court allowed a redistricting question onto the November ballot. Gov. Wes Moore and legislative Democrats aim to redraw congressional maps to secure an additional House seat in 2028, a move that would eliminate Rep. Andy Harris's district as currently drawn.
Harris, an eight-term lawmaker who chairs the House Freedom Caucus, announced Friday he would contact former Gov. Larry Hogan to lead opposition to the referendum. Harris told the Washington Examiner he hopes Hogan "would take a leading position to try to defeat this referendum," arguing that "some outside influences" are necessary to counter what he called the state Supreme Court's "bias."
The Maryland Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the referendum's original ballot language was "misleading and therefore violates due process requirements." Despite that finding, the court's majority revised the language itself and allowed the question on the ballot. Two Democratic-appointed justices dissented, saying the revised language "remains misleading." All five Republican-appointed justices on the court were named by Hogan.
Harris called the revised wording "very deceptive," arguing that voters looking at only the ballot text or absentee ballots would "be deceived into thinking this is not about creating extreme partisan gerrymandering."
Hogan, a two-term centrist Republican who left office in 2023 with bipartisan approval ratings, lost his 2024 Senate bid to Democrat Angela Alsobrooks. The anti-Trump Republican has largely stepped back from politics but still weighs in on Maryland matters. In an August op-ed for the Baltimore Sun—before Democrats passed the redistricting measure during a special legislative session—Hogan accused Moore and state Democrats of "pure hypocrisy."
Hogan wrote that the redistricting "is not about election reform" and "isn't about fairness, and it isn't about righting a past wrong." He characterized it as Annapolis's "political monopoly" attempting to eliminate the last Republican member of Congress through redistricting rather than persuasion.
The battle reflects Maryland's political map: Democrats control the governor's office, the legislature, and now have a favorable court ruling. Harris's appeal to Hogan underscores the ideological gap between the conservative Freedom Caucus chairman and the centrist former governor.
