Senator Nancy Jacobs / District 34 / Maryland Cecil & Harford Counties / nancyjacobs.com / 800-492-7122 x3158
From the Office of: Senator Nancy Jacobs Minority Leader (R-Harford/Cecil)  I’m heading to Annapolis on Sunday to put the finishing touches on my testimony for our Special Session that begins tomorrow. Our Republican Caucus will meet at 9 am to discuss strategy for each day of the special session.The redistricting bill that I’m sponsoring in the Senate is being sponsored by Delegate Tony O’Donnell in the House. Our bill is a Good Government Redistricting Plan because Marylanders deserve fair and accurate representation of their interests We will do our bill presentation together at 1 pm Monday before the Senate and House Committees hearing the redistricting bills. We want our constituent's voices to be heard this week.
The Governor finally released his plan on Saturday (yesterday). In stark contrast, his redistricting bill tears these communities apart. The O’Malley plan may be politically satisfying to the backroom dealmakers of Annapolis, but it disenfranchises the very people it is meant to represent. The plan lacks discernible criteria for boundaries such as communities, school districts, or even county lines. The redistricting process was never meant to be an incumbent retention exercise. Marylanders should be ashamed that the byproduct of the backroom deal-making resulted in ridicule from national media including one newspaper holding a naming contest for the redrawn 3rd Congressional District. O’Malley’s plan isn’t about the people; it’s about the self-serving politics that have come to define Annapolis. Until Thursday night none of these alternative plans were going to be considered by the Maryland General Assembly. The Governor’s bill was the only one that would have a hearing. I called the President’s office and shared my concern that doing that would look like blatantly backroom partisan politics. At the bare minimum, Marylanders at least deserve to be heard and to offer their opinions on the multitude of plans. To his credit, the President of the Senate agreed that all of our bills deserve a hearing. ALL of the redistricting bills will be heard on Monday. I believe that decision-making processes should be taken out of the back rooms and we should have open, honest and transparency from our leaders. I have no delusions that any of our bills will truly be considered throughout this process. What we gained by calling on the democrat leadership to do the right thing was making them realize that the process they created was neither open nor fair. The democrats control Annapolis, so much so that they don’t even acknowledge that republicans and independents in this state deserve to have their voices be heard too. Rural Maryland and minorities are totally ignored as well. It’s as though they are the democrats are the only ones whose opinions matter. That is part of what is wrong when one political party controls an entire state. All three of the republican plans create a majority minority district, allowing for all minorities to have accurate and fair representation in D.C. Our governor chose partisanship over doing the right thing for the citizens of Maryland. Let your voice be heard this week.  Click here for a PDF of the Map Sponsor: Senator Nancy Jacobs* Respects existing county and municipal boundaries to keep communities of common interest together. * Splits counties as infrequently as possible * Creates three Minority-Majority districts * Creates a district solely for Baltimore City of inside the beltway communities * Protects the interests of voters rather than incumbent politicians FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL: Suzanne Collins Chief of Staff 410-841-3158 God bless you.  Senator Nancy Jacobs Senate Minority Leader District 34-- Harford and Cecil County Web sites: nancyjacobs.com mdsenategop.com www.facebook.com/Senator. |
Brief, Intense Special Session Kicks Off With Target On Bartlett’s Back
CityBizNews / October 17, 2011The 188 members of the Maryland General Assembly return to the State House today for what promises to be a brief but intense special session to redraw congressional district lines.
It kicks off at 10 a.m. with a press conference by Gov. Martin O'Malley, Senate President Mike Miller and House Speaker Michael Busch, the principal architects of the plan O'Malley officially unveiled Saturday evening after a week of largely negative comments from the public concerning a plan submitted earlier by a five-person advisory committee.
The plan the governor submitted, as he promised, is "substantially similar" to the one recommended by the advisory committee on which Busch and Miller served. O'Malley did little to mollify the critics of the original plan, though he did return some of the Democratic-leaning precincts taken away from Montgomery County Democrat Rep. Chris Van Hollen in the party's attempt to target Republican Rep. Roscoe Bartlett in the 6th Congressional District
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Despite loud, public and bipartisan outcries about the lack of a third minority district, it was actually Van Hollen - not Rep. Donna Edwards of Prince George's - who lost the most minority and Democratic voters, according to a chart prepared by the Baltimore Sun based on figures from the state Democratic Party.
Morning session, afternoon hearing
The House and Senate will come into session at 11:30 a.m. to introduce the governor's plan and several alternatives from the GOP, along with bills on other topics that are not expected to be acted on. The Senate will promptly pass a rule to form a new, large standing Committee on Reapportionment and Redistricting to be chaired by Sen. James Robey, a Howard County Democrat.
At 1 p.m., the new committee along with the House Rules Committee - also a large group of legislative leaders - will convene a joint hearing that is likely to last most of the afternoon.
MarylandReporter.com will be updating events throughout the day with a live blog LINK post that will be running above this story on the home page.
While as many as 40 members of the House and Senate listen to testimony on congressional district lines and two bills on school board districts, the six standing committees of the House will get briefings on topics such as budget mandates, health benefits exchange, community colleges and other matters. (With more than a third of the 47-member Senate on the redistricting committee, its four standing committees will not be meeting.)
Wrap up Tuesday or Wednesday
In a brief conversation last week, Robey said the committees would try to wrap up their work on redistricting today, or tomorrow morning if they go late.
Both houses could conceivably vote on a bill Tuesday, although that would require getting a super-majority to pass the redistricting as an emergency bill so that it would go into effect as soon as the governor signs it. That requires 85 votes from the 141 delegates and 29 from the 47 senators. Finishing up on Tuesday would also require a suspension of the rules to vote on a bill twice in the same day.
Fast action is necessary to meet a Jan. 11 filing deadline for congressional candidates for the April 3 primary, and to allow for any court action on lawsuits likely to be filed against the plan.
Three House committees are already planning hearings on Wednesday, and the House Environmental Matters Committee says its hearing on Chesapeake Bay nutrient control will happen at 11:30 a.m. or "immediately following session," indicating some leaders are expecting a three-day session.
GOP no longer hoping for black alliance
At the Monday hearing, Republicans will be offering several very different plans that create three minority districts, and three that favor Republicans. They had been hoping for an alliance with the Black Legislative Caucus to support an alternative map, but a meeting this weekend indicated the caucus was likely to support the governor's plan when it meets again this morning.
On a Facebook posting, Senate Minority Leader Nancy Jacobs, Harford-Cecil, said she and House Minority Leader Tony O'Donnell, Calvert, "will present our bill together. Hope lots of people show up and object to O'Malley's exercise in partisan gerrymandering. We were hoping to have the support of the black caucus - evidently we won't."
Senator Nancy Jacobs Minority Leader (R-Harford/Cecil): THREE MINORITY-OFFERED MAPS FIGHT TO PRESERVE THE INTEGRITY OF RURAL COMMUNITIES AND CONTAIN THREE MAJORITY-MINORITY DISTRICTS
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