Maryland voters will face an unusually complicated constitutional question this November concerning congressional redistricting. Question 3 does not itself redraw Maryland’s congressional districts. Instead, it would change the Maryland Constitution to clarify which state constitutional rules apply when congressional districts are drawn—and, just as importantly, which rules do not.

The history behind the amendment helps explain why it is controversial.

Maryland’s Constitution requires legislative districts to be contiguous, compact, and drawn with “due regard” for natural boundaries and the boundaries of political subdivisions. For many years, those provisions were generally treated as rules governing districts for the Maryland General Assembly. That understanding changed during litigation over the congressional map enacted after the 2020 census.

In 2022, retired Judge Lynne Battaglia ruled that those state constitutional requirements also applied to Maryland’s congressional districts. She struck down the General Assembly’s 2021 congressional map, finding, among other things, that it failed state constitutional standards concerning compactness and political boundaries. The General Assembly subsequently adopted a replacement congressional map.

Question 3 is, in significant part, a response to that 2022 decision. During a special session in August 2026, the General Assembly passed HB 2100, sponsored by House Speaker Joseline Peña-Melnyk. The measure passed the Senate 32–13 and was approved by the governor on August 5. Because it changes the Constitution, however, voters must approve it before it can take effect.

If adopted, Question 3 would make three principal changes.

• First, it would specify that Maryland’s constitutional requirements concerning compactness, contiguity, and political and natural boundaries apply to districts for the Maryland Senate and House of Delegates—not congressional districts.
• Second, it would state explicitly that nothing elsewhere in the Maryland Constitution, including the Declaration of Rights, supplies criteria for drawing congressional district boundaries.
• Third, it would allow the General Assembly to give the Supreme Court of Maryland original jurisdiction to hear challenges to congressional redistricting plans.

The argument for Question 3

Supporters describe the amendment principally as a clarification of constitutional law. Their argument is that Article III of the Maryland Constitution was designed to regulate districts for the General Assembly and that the 2022 court decision extended those provisions to congressional districts in a way that had not previously been understood. Under that view, Question 3 restores the historical distinction between state legislative redistricting and congressional redistricting and establishes clearer rules before the next round of mapmaking.