First obstacle overcome for redistricting vote

It was closer than organizers would like, but the effort to bring Congressional redistricting to referendum will move on after turning in 25,000 signatures to the state Board of Elections Thursday. That eclipsed the 18,579 needed and saved the Maryland Republican Party from a bitter and public defeat. Now they have 30 more days to collect another 37,157 valid signatures to place Maryland’s newly-drawn Congressional districts on the November ballot.

While there are elements within the Maryland GOP which prefer the new districts, the party as a whole is backing the effort to erase the lines that party Chair Alex Mooney called a “direct attack by power-hungry Democrats in Annapolis” in a message to supporters. Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dan Bongino echoed that sentiment, calling the map”absolutely ridiculous” because his home county of Anne Arundel has been shredded into four different Congressional districts.

(continued at Examiner.com…)