Will Howard County ever get to elect a homegrown Congressperson

     

     With the 2020 census, the map of Maryland Congressional Districts is being redrawn.  There are a few different maps being considered.  Most have Howard County lumped together with Ann Arundel County.  Over the 40+ years, I have lived in Howard County we have been divided up among other areas and never kept whole in any significant manner.  Being centrally located in the State we were easy to carve up with other geographic areas.  East Columbia and West Columbia were often in different Congressional districts.  For the first few years in the 1980s, we were in the Congressional District with Rep. Byron from Western Maryland.  At the time Howard County was still a conservative county so having us in another conservative district made sense.  As Howard County became more liberal we were carved up with Baltimore City Congressional Districts.  We were represented for a time with Congressman Cummings and now currently Rep. Sarbanes.

     If the final map shown above is adopted we will be kept whole as a County even if we are lumped together with Ann Arundel County that has more similar demographics than we have with Baltimore City or Western Maryland.  With 250,000 more residents than Howard County, Ann Arundel County still will have an advantage in having one of their homegrown politicians become our Congressional Representative.  In spite of this advantage for Ann Arundel County, we might have a better shot at having one of our politicians represent us in the future.

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