House Majority Forward, a nonprofit closely aligned with Democratic leadership, is sending another $5 million to the party’s redistricting referendum campaign.
That brings HMF’s total investment to $10 million ahead of the planned April 21 referendum in Virginia. Virginia voters will weigh in on a proposed state constitutional amendment that would allow the Democratic-controlled state legislature to temporarily disregard the bipartisan redistricting commission and gerrymander the commonwealth’s House map.
This effort could yield up to four new districts for House Democrats.
The party’s campaign, Virginians for Fair Elections, has already spent $5.3 million on ads, per AdImpact. The latest spots feature a former member of the state’s redistricting commission and a retired Army general endorsing the amendment.
Maryland. The filing deadline in Maryland is this evening, adding another wrinkle to Democrats’ push to get the state legislature to redistrict before the midterms.
The pressure campaign to push state Senate President Bill Ferguson, a Democrat, to redraw the state’s congressional map hasn’t worked. Despite entreaties from Maryland Democratic Gov. Wes Moore and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Ferguson remains staunchly opposed.
One last hope lies in a little-used discharge petition process that could force the redistricting bill onto the Senate floor for a vote without Ferguson’s support. Former Attorney General Eric Holder urged Maryland senators to take this extraordinary action in an op-ed Monday in the Baltimore Sun.
Holder has been in contact with Moore and made calls to Democratic legislators, per a source familiar with those conversations. But 16 of Democrats’ 34 state senators would need to back a discharge petition and it’s not clear if that many support a redraw.
