The ACLU of Maryland became the latest group to oppose Baltimore County’s effort to expand its council by two seats, arguing that two accompanying proposals included with the bill to redraw council boundaries could violate federal civil rights law by disenfranchising county voters of color.
State Sen. Charles Sydnor, an attorney and plaintiff in a previous voters’ right lawsuit against the county, said he could sue again if the council didn’t amend its “unconstitutional” legislation. The bill sponsor, Baltimore County Chair Izzy Patoka, said his legislation was being misconstrued for a “political stunt,” and would leave it to voters to ultimately decide.
The seven-member Baltimore County Council voted July 1 to put a measure on the Nov. 5 ballot asking voters to approve expanding the council to 9 members starting in 2026. Advocates have argued for decades that adding members would create opportunities for people of color, women, and other minorities to run for public office. The county population has grown threefold since 1956, when it adopted its charter, and is nearly 50% people of color. The council is made up of six white men and one Black man.
A host of state Democratic lawmakers, including House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones, threw their weight behind a competing effort to expand the council by four seats, which failed to gather enough valid signatures to appear on the ballot. County Executive Johnny Olszewski Jr., who is running for Congress and currently attending the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, initially said he supported any expansion effort. He endorsed the four-seat expansion effort led by the Vote4More coalition in late July, a week before its signature collection deadline.
In a letter sent Monday to Patoka and Baltimore County Attorney James Benjamin, ACLU of Maryland legal director Deborah Jeon said Patoka’s bill was illegal because the proposed maps were “racially dilutive and unlawful” and could weaken Black residents’ voting power, a potential violation of the federal Voting Rights Act.
The group previously sued the county in 2021 after the council redrew district boundaries, which advocates said did not create enough opportunities for Black residents, who make up a third of the county population, to elect candidates of their choosing. A federal judge threw out that map but approved the county council’s second attempt over the plaintiffs’ objections.
“The redistricting plan and map appended to (the bill) as exhibits were not adopted through the county’s ordinary redistricting process, which is undertaken through involvement of an appointed redistricting commission and includes extensive opportunity for public review, comment, and analysis,” Jeon wrote to Benjamin and Patoka. “As such, if the ballot measure passes in its current form, the county will almost certainly expose itself to renewed voting rights litigation to invalidate this racially discriminatory plan.”
In an interview, Jeon said the group’s main issue was that the maps did not undergo a public process before the council voted to adopt and send the ballot measure to voters. “Here, they just slipped it in without any sort of vetting public process,” she said. “All they need to do is eliminate the map and let the ballot measure move forward without linking to that map.”
The American Civil Liberties Union’s state affiliate is asking for the council to pass amending legislation that would strike the maps before Sept. 5, the day ballots are finalized. It is also asking the council to strike a provision of the ballot measure that allows the two additional members to appoint members of the county Board of Education by siphoning two members away from the governor, who has the power to appoint members from a list of nominees. That was the reason state lawmakers, including Sydnor and Jones, said they opposed the legislation.
Patoka said the council did not have enough time to draft, vote on, and adopt amending legislation by the Sept. 5 deadline. He said the maps were temporary, and that the council would convene a redistricting committee or “similar entity” to make changes via a public process if the measure passes.
“The concept that the maps can’t be changed is flawed. They can change and they will change,” he said in an interview.
He also took umbrage with lawmakers saying the legislation usurped their authority to nominate county election board members. Patoka argued the bill merely “notified” the General Assembly that the council could add two more members, and state lawmakers could adopt legislation to modify their nomination power.
“How that got construed to, ‘we’re telling the state what to do,'” Patoka said, “Is more of a political stunt than actual reality.”
Sandra Branson Bentley, an attorney for the General Assembly, said in an advisory letter to Sydnor that the legislation must be read as non-binding because the council does not have authority over the General Assembly: “Should the voters approve the amendment, the General Assembly has authority to determine how — and if — the state provisions will be amended.”
Sydnor said he could only take the council “at their word,” and read the legislation as a demand, rather than a suggestion.
“If the county doesn’t see fit to address the unconstitutional provisions in their legislation,” he said, “One remedy is to file a lawsuit. I’ve been a plaintiff against the county before.”
