About two dozen legislators and Democratic activists gathered in front of Baltimore County’s offices at the historic courthouse in Towson to protest what they consider an unjust redistricting map as well as an unfair process leading to it.

“This map is the result of a lack of transparency,” said Veronica Dunlap, deputy executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland. “The council has not explained who drew the map, what testimony was considered or how it complies with the law.”

The threat of a lawsuit from the ACLU also looms. The last time Baltimore County’s political maps were redrawn, the NAACP sued over new districts that it said diluted Black representation. The county lost and had to pay the private law firm that handled the defense close to $1 million. Dunlap said her organization, which has won numerous redistricting challenges in Maryland, is watching closely.

The Baltimore County Council’s proposed map currently carves out two minority districts on the west side, instead of the existing one there now. It does not include any minority districts on the east side, which some residents have been clamoring for in public hearings. The council will vote on the map Sept. 15.

Council members and members of the public have been sparring over the proposed new political boundaries since July 2024, when it voted to expand from seven members to nine — the first such expansion since the council formed in 1956.

The county’s population has nearly tripled since then, to close to 850,000 residents. Nearly half of its residents are people of color, and one-third are Black. The council is currently composed of six white men and one Black man.

To pass the council expansion, then-Chairman Izzy Patoka, a Democrat, needed the council’s three Republicans to vote with him. Democrat Mike Ertel always favored an expansion, but the other two Democrats, Pat Young and Julian Jones, were lukewarm on expansion, then said they would only vote to add four more seats.

Ultimately, the council’s Republicans agreed to add two seats, but for a price. They wanted to have a 5-4 party split instead of 6-3. The council then passed a placeholder map along with a bill to put the matter before voters in the fall.

Voters approved the charter amendment to expand the council, but the map was not part of that, thanks to an amendment that required a redistricting panel to create a new map. The panel included representatives from each council district and met for 15 weeks. Its final recommended map includes two minority districts on the west side and two districts made up of a majority of Black, Latino and Asian voters — one on the west side and one on the east side.

Immediately after the panel released its recommendations, the council’s three Republicans announced they would not support it. The council members then deliberated, among themselves and with the public, and introduced the map that the parties are fighting over today.

It resembles their original map — with two Black-majority districts on the west side and none on the east. That has led to concerns that the new council will not be much more diverse than it has been over its history. Baltimore County has only ever elected five women and two Black men — the rest have been white men, often the sons of men who previously held high-level government positions.

At Friday’s rally, legislators and activists held up signs with slogans like, “Show us the map,” suggesting some council members were working on a backroom map.

Young, who organized the protest and is running for county executive, said he had hoped to see a revised map before the council’s next work session at 4 p.m. Tuesday. But, he said, his colleagues have not shared anything with him about any tweaks to the map, nor have they released anything publicly.

“How can we honestly expect the public to have a robust and informed discussion without giving them the respect of adequate notice when members of the council have not even seen a map?“ Young asked. ”The answer is that we can’t."

Asked if his colleagues were freezing him out, Young said he’d been reaching out to them in multiple ways and had not gotten a response.

Jones, who is often allied with Young in questioning his colleagues about redistricting, said he’d been hearing from activists about a “secret map.” He asked his colleagues, and they said there was none.

“The map is what’s out, as I understand it,” Jones said.

Councilmen choose the issues they are going to be most engaged in, and on the redistricting map, from the beginning, the most active members have been Patoka, Ertel and Republican David Marks. For more than a year, Patoka said, the three have “rolled up their sleeves” to take in hundreds of public comments at long meetings and try to incorporate concerns into a map that balances the desires for communities to remain together while increasing diversity. Patoka called Young’s allegations “absurd.”

“Councilman Young has not made a single phone call to me,” he said.

One complication in getting maps out to the public before the work session: The position of county councilman is now a part-time job. Both Ertel and Marks have other jobs, and Patoka is planning to announce his campaign for county executive. Jones is running for county executive, too. The legislation that expanded the council, though, also makes the jobs full-time. It will take effect in 2026.