Maryland Matters on the Air

With a special General Assembly session looming on congressional redistricting, Maryland Matters’ Josh Kurtz will be part of a discussion on redistricting Wednesday afternoon on WYPR’s “Midday” program.

Host Tom Hall will kick off the show after the NPR news at noon with an interview with former state Sen. James Brochin (D-Baltimore County), the co-chair of the group Fair Maps Maryland. That group, affiliated with Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R), was organized to advocate for congressional and legislative redistricting plans put together by the Maryland Citizens Redistricting Commission, another Hogan creation. The commission’s congressional proposal is almost certain to be ignored when lawmakers gather in Annapolis on Dec. 6 to draw a new map.

Next on the program will be Dave Daley, senior fellow at the group FairVote and author of “Unrigged: How Americans Are Battling Back to Save Democracy.” Kurtz will join the conversation around 12:30 p.m., to discuss the politics swirling around the redistricting debate in Annapolis and speculate on how the new congressional and legislative maps may ultimately turn out.

The Democrats, who have supermajorities in both chambers of the General Assembly, will dominate the redistricting process when a new congressional map is drawn next month and when a new legislative map takes shape during the regular General Assembly session, which begins in January. But Hogan and Fair Maps Maryland have a large megaphone, and there’s always a possibility that the courts will wind up dictating what the final political boundaries look like.

“Midday” can be heard at noon on 88.1 on the FM dial or livestreamed at https://www.wypr.org/. The program can be heard after the fact at https://www.wypr.org/show/midday.

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