The Baltimore County Council waited until the eleventh hour to submit a new redistricting plan to a federal judge Tuesday night — and the revised map still included only one majority Black Council district.
U.S. District Court Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby ordered the new map in February, saying the council’s plan needed to include either “two reasonably compact majority-Black Districts” or another district in which Black voters “otherwise have an opportunity to elect a representative of their choice.” The plan was due by 11:59 p.m. Tuesday.
Roughly 30% of county residents are Black, according to U.S. Census data, and nearly half are people of color — reflecting increasing diversity in the county in recent decades. But five of seven districts in the plan that was approved by the county council in December were majority white and another, District 1, had a 49.41% white plurality in its voting age population.
In a plan that became available in online court records at about 11 p.m. Tuesday evening, the Baltimore County Council presented a map that still retained only one majority Black council district.
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Bennett Leckrone over at Maryland Matters
