Mayor Brandon Scott vetoed City Council President Nick Mosby’s competing plan to rewrite Baltimore district lines Monday, informing the council of his decision just minutes before the council’s last chance to override the decision and ensuring that his own map takes effect.
The move to veto the counter proposal prolongs a dispute between the two sides over the city’s redistricting plan and comes less than two weeks after 15-member City Council narrowly approved Mosby’s map in an 8-6 vote, with one member absent.
City Council did not try to override the veto. The council would need a two-thirds majority to overturn the decision, but the council’s regularly scheduled meeting Monday night was its last opportunity to override a veto before a statutory 60-day deadline expires Nov. 17.
The map Scott introduced in mid-September leaves unaddressed many of the concerns about the his plan the council heard over a series of community town halls.
Prior to the introduction of Scott’s proposal, the city had held no public input sessions to workshop the new districts. But over a series of meetings and town halls convened by the council, many neighborhood leaders criticized the mayor’s proposal for splitting their communities between two or more districts — concerns Mosby and the council worked to address in the version they approved.
Until now, though, much of the disagreement between Scott and Mosby has focused less on the precise lines of their competing maps and more on the process’s rushed timeline.
Under city charter, leaders face a hard, 60-day deadline to finalize their redistricting plan — a timeframe attorneys with Scott’s Law Department told Mosby includes any back-and-forth between the mayor and council. That meant the council had to move quickly to get any alternative plan to Scott’s desk, otherwise the mayor could simply “run out the clock out,” as Mosby put it, and deprive the council of any chance to override a veto.
But after the two sides seemed to reach a compromise in late September, Mosby opted to take some additional time to consider public input, expressing his hope that Scott would act in “good faith” by allowing council a sufficient chance to respond if he didn’t intend to sign their version.
In hopes of avoiding such a scenario, Mosby moved aggressively to get his plan through council and to Scott’s desk, pushing a rapid timeline that drew objection from the mayor. When the council moved to take a final vote on Mosby’s proposal just days after he introduced his map, Scott’s office called the timeline “troubling” and argued that the quick turnaround didn’t give the public, city planners or city attorneys adequate time to weigh in.
The key differences between the council and mayor’s proposals have to do with the boundary lines around some communities near the edges of current districts. Over the course of three town halls last month, representatives from some neighborhoods, including Bolton Hill, Hoes Heights, Morrell Park and Howard Park, spoke against Scott’s plan because it would split their communities into multiple districts. At an input session the night after the introduction of Mosby’s map, many neighborhoods leaders appealed to the council to keep their neighborhoods unified by supporting the council president’s plan over the mayor’s.
Notably, Scott’s plan would shift Camden Yards out of Councilman Eric Costello’s District 11 and into Councilwoman Phylicia Porter’s 10th District. Part of the Port Covington/Baltimore Peninsula area, meanwhile, would also move from Costello’s turf to Porter’s, straddling the 10th District across the Patapsco River.
Other aspects of the competing maps are the same. Both plans would see council representation change for some neighborhoods in Central Baltimore — such as Little Italy, Harbor East and Bolton Hill — where residents have flocked in the last decade even as the city’s overall population has declined. The footprint of Costello’s 11th District and Zeke Cohen’s 1st District, which wrap around the Inner Harbor and have the largest populations under current lines, would cede significant territory under both plans.
A proposal to unify East Baltimore’s Highlandtown neighborhood within District 1, another point supported by many residents in the town halls, is mirrored in both maps, as is a plan to flip a section north of Patterson Park from Cohen’s district to Councilman Antonio Glover’s.
Ahead of Monday night’s meeting, Mosby announced that he would be introducing a charter amendment aimed at ensuring more time for public feedback and preventing the mayor from depriving the council of a chance to override a veto. If approved by the full council, the proposed amendment would go before Baltimore voters on next year’s general election ballot.
Baltimore’s redistricting process, which happens after the census every 10 years, seeks to divide city voters into 14 districts of roughly equal populations — this time aiming for about 42,000 residents per district. Mapmakers are also legally required to draw districts that are “contiguous” and “compact.”
adam.willis@thebaltimorebanner.com
