As President Donald Trump pushes Texas and other states to redraw congressional district maps to benefit Republicans, a top Democrat in Maryland wants to push back.

Del. David Moon, majority leader in the Maryland House of Delegates, says he’s drafting legislation that would require that if other states engage in out-of-cycle redrawing of congressional districts, then Maryland would be required to as well.

“The basic idea is that if any other state violates the norm of redrawing congressional districts only once every 10 years, that Maryland — and frankly the rest of the states — ought to do the same," said Moon, a Montgomery County Democrat. “To have one state go wildly off schedule and do redistricting twice doesn’t make sense.”

Since announcing his proposal on social media on Tuesday, Moon said he’s gotten interest from within Maryland and beyond. He said it’s important that the actions of Texas don’t go unanswered.

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“The hope is, if it’s known that Democratic states will respond in kind, then everyone says: ‘It’s a bad idea, let’s not do it,’” Moon said.

But it’s not guaranteed that Maryland lawmakers would be able to shift the congressional delegation’s balance of power through redistricting, as other states are contemplating.

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Typically, political district boundaries are redrawn every 10 years when new Census data comes in, moving the lines to accommodate population shifts — and perhaps to favor one political party over another. Maryland currently isn’t scheduled to redraw its congressional maps until after the 2030 Census.

Trump, a Republican, has been pressuring Texas to redraw its maps in hopes of picking up more GOP members in Congress during the 2026 elections. Republicans currently hold slim majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

“There could be some other states we’re going to get another three, or four or five in addition. Texas would be the biggest one,” the president said last week, according to news reports. “Just a simple redrawing we pick up five seats.”

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Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, called the Texas Legislature into session this week for a 30-day period to consider redistricting and other issues.

Moon’s bill, if it were to pass, would require Maryland to respond to redistricting by Texas or other states with its own map-drawing session.

A top Republican in Annapolis dismissed Moon’s proposal as nothing more than political opportunism.

“Only Maryland Democrats would see election mischief elsewhere and think, ‘Let’s out-cheat the cheaters,’” Sen. Steve Hershey, Republican minority leader in the state Senate, said in a statement. “Delegate Moon’s proposal to redraw Maryland’s congressional maps mid-decade if another state does the same isn’t bold — it’s reckless, shameless, and a transparent grab for partisan advantage."

Maryland’s existing congressional district maps have resulted in a delegation of seven Democratic representatives and just one Republican, U.S. Rep. Andy Harris from the Eastern Shore. So, at most, a partisan-fueled redistricting process in Maryland could only yield one additional Democrat to offset Republican-tilted maps in other states.

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Maryland Democrats previously have been unable to overcome geographic challenges and legal questions to put such a map in place.

The last time Maryland’s districts were redrawn after the 2020 Census, Republicans won a court challenge, with a judge calling the map an “extreme gerrymander” — a term that describes a map that’s been manipulated to benefit one party. That map kept seven districts relatively safe for Democrats and made Harris’ largely Eastern Shore district slightly more competitive by jumping it across the Chesapeake Bay to wrap in some of bluer Anne Arundel County.

After the court ruling, leaders in Annapolis went back to the drawing board and came up with a map with more geographically compact districts that still yielded a 7-1 split among the House members elected in 2022, and again in 2024.

Democrats were 52.6% of registered voters at the time of the 2024 election, according to state data, while Republicans were 24% and 21.6% of registered voters chose no political party.

“Maryland Democrats lost their last congressional hyperpartisan gerrymander attempt in court — and this time, it will not be different," Maryland Republican Party Chair Nicole Beus Harris said in a statement. “But it will show Marylanders once again that Democrats in this state don’t even fake bipartisanship.”

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Asked whether his plan might cost time and money only to end up with the same partisan makeup, Moon said his focus is on the process, not result.

“For me, this is not about engineering a specific result,” Moon said. “It’s about defending Maryland’s process. Very simply: If other states redistrict more than once every 10 years, Maryland has to redistrict. It’s the only way for states to keep an even playing field.”

Moon’s proposal to trigger retaliatory out-of-cycle redistricting wouldn’t be considered by lawmakers for months. The General Assembly is next scheduled to be in session in January.