April 30, 2026

Bethesda Today

By Ceoli Jacoby

2026 legislative session marked MoCo legislators’ third failed attempt to change process for filling vacancies

Reflecting on the 2026 Maryland General Assembly session at a meeting of the District 18 breakfast club at Silver Spring’s Parkway Deli on Monday morning, House Speaker Joseline Peña-Melnyk said her chamber’s push for mid-cycle congressional redistricting — though unsuccessful — was worth it.

“I felt that we needed to meet the moment,” said Peña-Melnyk, a Democrat who represents parts of Anne Arundel and Prince George’s counties. “Ten years from now, I did not want to look at myself in the mirror and say, ‘what did I do to push back, to preserve our democracy?’ ”

As in other states, the question of whether to redraw congressional district lines for a partisan advantage in this year’s midterm elections was one Maryland legislators had to grapple with this year. The debate pitted the General Assembly’s two chambers against one another and defined much of the session that ended April 13.

In the process, a longstanding effort by two Montgomery County lawmakers to pass legislation requiring special elections to fill legislative vacancies got caught in the cross-fire — and once again didn’t make it across the finish line.

The proposal from Sen. Cheryl Kagan (D-Dist. 17) and Del. Linda Foley (D-Dist. 15) would have required special elections for vacant seats in the state legislature. The lawmakers were hopeful a referendum on the issue could finally come before voters this November after a new standing committee in the House of Delegates took  jurisdiction over election law.

Currently, all mid-term vacancies in the General Assembly are filled by appointment. The central committee of the party that held the seat interviews candidates and the governor appoints a replacement — usually, though not always, the person recommended by the committee.

The bill sponsored by Kagan would have changed the process for seats that become vacant while there is still time to file as a candidate in the statewide election that occurs halfway through state legislators’ four-year terms.

Under Kagan’s proposal, people appointed to fill seats that become vacant in that window would have to face voters in a special election, which would coincide with the regularly scheduled statewide primary and general elections.

If the bill had passed and the referendum championed by Kagan and Foley had been approved by voters in November, special elections for vacant General Assembly seats could have been held as early as 2028.

Now, the first opportunity for a special election will be in 2032.

“We missed an opportunity to finally bring more democracy to the General Assembly,” Kagan told Bethesda Today after Monday’s breakfast meeting. “It will be six years before we have special elections based on the shenanigans the House pulled. That’s what’s so disappointing.”

National context

The nationwide redistricting fight started in Texas, where the Republican majority legislature in July adopted a map intended to create more right-leaning districts. In response, some states under Democratic control drafted maps to favor their party in hopes of cancelling out GOP gains.

In Maryland, a redistricting commission convened by Gov. Wes Moore (D) recommended a new map containing eight left-leaning districts. The state currently has seven districts that favor Democrats and one safe Republican district on the Eastern Shore.

With the commission’s recommended map in hand, the House of Delegates raced to pass legislation to implement the new maps in time for this year’s primary and general elections on June 23 and Nov. 3, respectively.

But the proposal hit a wall in Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City), who refused to bring it forward for a vote citing concerns that the new map may not withstand a legal challenge. The 2026 legislative session ended April 13.

Ferguson’s concern is grounded in recent history. In 2022, the Anne Arundel County Circuit Court struck down a different congressional map with eight left-leaning districts on the grounds that it constituted an illegal partisan gerrymander.

The case never made it up to Maryland’s highest court, and state legislators had to scramble to draw a new map with just months to go until the primary election.

“It takes at least three to four months for a trial-level court to play out, and then whatever decision happens likely leads to an appeal,” Ferguson said in February. “We are not going to wait until June to reopen a filing deadline for new maps, new precincts, new local boards.”

In a move Del. Jared Solomon (D-Dist. 18) told Bethesda Today was intended to address Ferguson’s point about timing, leaders in the House turned their attention to the only other legislation that dealt with the section of the state constitution on election processes — Kagan’s special elections bill.

Committee amendment

The first hurdle for Kagan’s bill this year was the newly created Government, Labor and Elections Committee, of which Solomon is a member. The committee on March 25 voted to advance the special elections bill — with an amendment Kagan said “corrupted” it.

The amendment in question would have allowed the General Assembly to grant the Supreme Court of Maryland original jurisdiction over questions about congressional redistricting in the state. Solomon said it was “the House’s attempt to say, ‘we hear you,’ ” regarding the delays that would be caused by a likely legal challenge to a new map.

“The frustration on our chamber’s part was, we sent that bill over with that provision and nothing was done,” Solomon told Bethesda Today in an interview after Monday’s breakfast club meeting.

In a separate interview after Monday’s meeting, Kagan told Bethesda Today that leaders in the House “knew or should have known” the redistricting amendment would kill her bill.

“The Senate was clear. The answer was no,” Kagan said. “We had no interest in moving on redistricting.”

At some point, Kagan said, leaders in the House “should have backed off and dealt with the issue at hand.”

Around 5 p.m. on sine die — the final day of the General Assembly session — the House finally did back off, passing the cross-filed version of the bill sponsored by Del. Linda Foley (D-Dist. 15) without the redistricting amendment.

Peña-Melnyk said Monday there was “enough time” for the Senate to act on the bill before the end of the session at midnight, but that “just like in the House, it got a little bit contentious at the end.”

Kagan agreed with the speaker that the “buzz saw of Republican delay tactics” was the final nail in the coffin for the special elections bill this year. However, she said, the House could have sent the clean version to the Senate earlier.

“It is much easier to kill a bill than to pass a bill,” Kagan told Bethesda Today. “We moved it as quickly as we could.”

In an April 15 interview, Foley told Bethesda Today she stands behind the House’s decision to fight for congressional redistricting.

“I understand why that issue was really important, and I support what we were trying to do,” Foley said. “I’m just very disappointed that the result was that the special elections referendum ended up not passing.”

Kagan said she will revisit the issue next year, despite her disappointment over this year’s outcome.

“Without a doubt,” she said.