Cokely et al v. Honesty-Bey et al

OCR transcription for search; preserved printed pages are authoritative

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF MARYLAND

REVEREND DWIGHT COKELY,
MICHAEL ANDREW CARLISLE,
ERICA McKINNEY,

IAN ROWE,

MARK SHRODER and
LEONARD GORE, JR.,

Plaintiffs,
v. Civil Action No. 25-3363-TDC
WENDY HONESTY-BEY,
in her official capacity as Administrator of the
Prince George’s County Board of Elections,
PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY,
MARYLAND,

Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Plaintiffs Reverend Dwight Cokely, Michael Andrew Carlisle, Erica McKinney, Ian Rowe,
Mark Shroder, and Leonard Gore, Jr. have brought this civil action against Defendants Prince
George’s County, Maryland (“the County”) and the Administrator of the Prince George’s County
Board of Elections in which they challenge the 2021 legislative redistricting plan for the Prince
George’s County Council (“the 2021 Plan”).

Specifically, Plaintiffs allege that, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the 2021 Plan violates the
“one person, one vote” principle of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to
the United States Constitution, U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1, and a provision of the Prince
George’s County Charter requiring that a plan presented by a Redistricting Commission to the

Prince George’s County Council propose legislative districts that are “equal in population” and

AUTHENTICATED
U.S. GOVERNMENT
INFORMATION
GPO

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“compact.” Prince George’s Cnty. Charter (“PGC Charter”), art. III, § 305. By agreement of the
parties, on January 14, 2026, the Court held a trial on the merits. Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 52(a), the Court now provides its findings of fact and conclusions of law. For the
reasons set forth below, the Court finds in favor of Defendants and will enter judgment for
Defendants on all counts.
INTRODUCTION

On October 10, 2025, Plaintiffs filed the Complaint in this case in which they seek a
declaratory judgment finding that the 2021 Plan violates the Equal Protection Clause and the
Prince George’s County Charter (“the Charter’’); a permanent injunction barring Defendants from
conducting any further elections for members of the Prince George’s County Council (“the County
Council” or “the Council”) under the 2021 Plan and allowing Defendants to submit a proposed
remedial plan for Court approval; and attorney’s fees and costs. On October 31, 2025, Plaintiffs
filed a Motion for a Preliminary Injunction in which they also requested that the Court consolidate
the preliminary injunction hearing with a trial on the merits pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 65(a)(2). On November 25, 2025, the County Council filed a Motion to Intervene,
which the Court granted. On December 12, 2025, Defendants filed a memorandum in opposition
to Plaintiffs’ Motion for a Preliminary Injunction, as well as a Motion to Dismiss, or in the
Alternative, for Summary Judgment. After the Motions were fully briefed, the parties agreed to
consolidation of the preliminary injunction hearing with a trial on the merits to be held on January
14, 2026. Although the parties were given the opportunity to present witnesses and evidence at
the trial, they declined to do so and agreed to proceed on the Joint Record submitted with the
Motions. After the trial on the merits, the parties agreed to supplement the record with certain

records relating to the adoption and amendment of the Charter (“the Charter Records”).

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FINDINGS OF FACT

The record in this case consists of the Joint Statement of Undisputed Facts, the Joint
Record, and the Charter Records. The Joint Record includes, among other exhibits, the County’s
2021 Redistricting Commission Plan and Report; transcripts of the meetings of the County’s
Redistricting Commission on March 23, 2021 and May 3, 2021; a declaration and accompanying
exhibits submitted by William S. Cooper, a demographic and redistricting expert and an expert
witness for Plaintiffs; and an expert report submitted by Dr. Jeffery Jenkins, a Professor of Public
Policy, Political Science, and Law at the University of Southern California and an expert witness
for Defendants. It also includes transcripts of the deposition testimony of Cooper, Jenkins, and
Reverend James J. Robinson, the Senior Pastor of the Tree of Life Christian Ministries in Clinton,
Maryland and the Chair of the 2021 Redistricting Commission. Based on this evidence, the Court
finds the following facts.
I. Prince George’s County Charter

The Prince George’s County Charter, first adopted in 1970, currently provides for a County
Council comprised of eleven members, including two members elected at-large and nine members
elected from nine single-member districts (“Council districts”). Specifically, in Article III of the
Charter, which addresses the Legislative Branch, the Charter provides that:

Section 304. Council Districts.

(a) Prince George's County is hereby divided into nine Council districts.

(b) The boundaries of the Council districts shall be established pursuant to the

provisions of Section 305 of this Charter prior to the filing dates for the 1982

General Election to become effective on noon of the first Monday in December,

1982.

PGC Charter, art. HI, § 304.

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Article III, Section 305 establishes redistricting procedures for redrawing the boundaries
of these Council districts after every decennial United States census. As of the time of the relevant
events in 2021, Section 305 stated:

Section 305. Redistricting Procedure.

The boundaries of Council districts shall be reestablished in 1982 and every tenth

year thereafter. Whenever district boundaries are to be reestablished the Council

shall appoint, not later than February 1 of the year prior to the year in which

redistricting is to be effective, a commission on redistricting . . . . No person shall

be eligible for appointment to the Commission if he holds any elected office. By

September 1 of the year prior to the year in which redistricting is to be effective,

the Commission shall prepare, publish, and make available a plan of Council

districts and shall present that plan, together with a report explaining it, to the

Council. The plan shall provide for Council districts that are compact, contiguous,

and equal in population. No less than fifteen calendar days and no more than thirty

calendar days after receiving the plan of the Commission, the Council shall hold a

public hearing on the plan. If the Council passes no other law changing the

proposal, then the plan, as submitted, shall become law, as of the last day of

November, as an act of the Council, subject to Sections 320 and 321 of this Charter.

Id. § 305 (emphasis added). Thus, the Charter provides that, in the year after the decennial census,
a Redistricting Commission is tasked with creating a redistricting plan for the County Council’s
nine districts, and that plan must provide for districts that are “compact, contiguous, and equal in
population.” /d. The County Council may pass a law that adopts a different plan, but if it takes
no action, the Redistricting Commission’s plan becomes law and is implemented. See id.

II. The 2021 Redistricting Plan

On January 28, 2021, pursuant to Section 305 of the Charter, the County Council appointed
a three-member 2021 Redistricting Commission (“the Commission”) consisting of Reverend
Robinson, who was appointed as Chair; Dr. Charlene Mickens Dukes, the interim president of
Montgomery College and the former president of Prince George’s Community College; and David

C. Harrington, the president of the Prince George’s Chamber of Commerce, a former Maryland

state senator, a former member of the County Council, and a member of the 2011 Redistricting

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Commission. The Commission retained the same redistricting consultant it had used during the
2011 redistricting cycle, Dr. Nathaniel Persily, a professor at Stanford Law School and a nationally
recognized expert on elections and redistricting. On September 1, 2021, the Commission
submitted its final proposed 2021 Plan anil Report (“the Report”) to the County Council.

The Commission had it first public meeting on March 23, 2021, but because of delays
caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States Census Bureau had not yet released
population data from the 2020 census that would ordinarily be available by that time for use in the
redistricting process, and the Census Bureau had announced that the data would not be delivered
until September 30, 2021, after the statutory deadline of September 1, 2021 for the Commission’s
plan to be submitted to the County Council. Accordingly, the Commission initially relied on
projected data from a private vendor based on which it was estimated that from 2010 to 2020, the
population of Prince George’s County had grown by 50,792 to a total population of 914,212. This
data resulted in an “ideal population” per district (“the ideal district population”) of 101,579,
consisting of the population per district if each district had exactly the same population. Joint
Record (“J.R.”) 8, ECF Nos. 68, 71. The Commission adopted five principles to guide its
preparation of a new map of Council districts: (1) a “least change plan,” which would move the
fewest number of people as necessary to comply with the “one person, one vote” requirement; (2)
contiguous boundaries; (3) avoidance of precinct splits; (4) districts with no greater than a 4.5
percent population deviation from the ideal district population; and (5) “consideration of assets or
community interests that connect each district.” J.R. 8, 12. In addition, the Commission decided
to use the existing districts as a starting point for the 2021 Plan, rather than starting anew.

The Commission identified several reasons for using the existing districts as the starting

point, for seeking a least change plan, and for adopting the identified principles. First, as Robinson

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stated at the initial Commission meeting on March 23, 2021, because the Commission was not
expected to receive the final Census data until September 2021 and thus had to rely on projected
data, it would be difficult to “start from scratch,” and as Dr. Persily advised, “starting with the
current map will . . . minimize the disruptive potential of everything that we’re doing over this
next... six months.” J.R. 1078, 1080. Second, the Commission took lessons from the 2011
Redistricting Commission which, as recounted by Dr. Persily at that initial meeting, had proposed
a plan that “pretty much worked from scratch” but was ultimately rejected by the County Council,
which chose instead “to work off the existing districts” and not “work off the districts as they were
presented by the commission.” J.R. 1062-63. Third, as stated in its Report, the Commission
recognized that the 2011 Plan was never legally challenged, so there were no known problems
with using it as a starting point. Dr. Persily also noted that in 2011, the County Council “felt
strongly that it was important to keep precincts together.” J.R. 1073.

The Commission decided to work within a 4.5 percent population deviation from the ideal
district population, meaning that it would ensure that each district would have a population no
more than 4.5 percent higher or lower than the ideal district population, based on Dr. Persily’s
advice that doing so would give the Commission “some cushion so that even once the new census
data comes out,” the Commission could “be pretty sure that [the] plan, if enacted, would abide by
one person, one vote.” J.R. 1069.

Although a least change plan is typically “least disruptive to the incumbents, voters, and
the electoral system,” the Commission stated in its Report that it “did not consider incumbency,
partisanship, or political impact” in preparing the 2021 Plan. J.R. 12. In his deposition, Robinson
testified that incumbency was “[a]bsolutely not” considered in designing the redistricting maps,

and that in carrying out the Commission’s mandate, he was “not interested in politics or

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incumbency.” J.R. 1197-99. He also testified that he “didn’t particularly care what the [C]ouncil
wanted” out of the redistricting process and that he had “zero” communication with the County
Council during the Commission’s work on the 2021 Plan. J.R. 1149-1150. Although at the initial
Commission meeting, Dr. Persily stated that “incumbents probably like” the existing districts, he
also informed the Commission that in the 2011 redistricting cycle, it turned out that some
incumbents “were not as attached to their districts as we thought.” J.R. 1080.

Overall, the Commission held eleven public meetings and two public hearings at which it
received both oral and written public views regarding the proposed Council districts. On June 21,
2021, one month prior to the Commission’s first public hearing, the Commission unveiled three
preliminary plans prepared by Dr. Persily based on population deviations from the ideal district
population of 4.5 percent, two percent, and one percent. The Commission received significant
negative public feedback about the two-percent plan, which proposed moving 2,250 people from
the Collington Station area of the City of Bowie from District 4 to District 6, which would separate
that community from the rest of Bowie. This opposition included numerous messages from
residents of Collington Station, including emails asserting that their community should remain in
District 4 so as to keep together a shared “community of interest” consisting of the entirety of
Bowie. J.R. 1292-93.

The Commission also received oral and written input, as well as alternative proposed
redistricting plans, from Bradley Heard, a Prince George’s County resident who is now counsel
for Plaintiffs but submitted these plans in his personal capacity. In a June 6, 2021 letter, Heard
criticized the Commission’s decision to adopt a “least change” approach and submitted an
“illustrative redistricting plan” that did not derive from the existing districts and which he asserted

did “a far superior job of meeting the Commission’s other articulated redistricting criteria than a

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‘least change’ approach” by lowering the population deviation, being more compact and
contiguous, not splitting any precincts or incorporated municipalities, and keeping several Metro
Line corridors together. J.R. 1244. Heard also submitted letters on June 14, July 18, July 25, and
August 16, which continued to criticize the Commission’s least change approach, as well as
provide updates to his illustrative plan. |

Around August 12, 2021, ahead of the earlier announced schedule, the Census Bureau
released its official population data relevant to the redistricting. This data showed that the County
population was actually 967,201, which changed the ideal population per district to 107,467. On
August 30, 2021, after the Commission updated its work based on the final data, the Commission
adopted its proposed 2021 Plan, which generally consisted of the plan based on a 4.5 percent
population deviation from the ideal district population, which as a result of the updated data
actually had no districts with more than a 4.3 percent population deviation. Specifically, District
8 had a population that was 4.3 percent below the ideal district population, while District 1, the
district with the highest population, had a population that was 2.6 percent above the ideal district
population. Accordingly, the maximum population deviation between any two districts

%

(“maximum population deviation”), referred to in the Report as the “total deviation,” was 6.9
percent. J.R. 23, 52.

The 2021 Plan moved a total of five precincts: two precincts in Adelphi from District 1 to
District 2, one precinct in Glenn Dale from District 3 to District 4, and two precincts in District
Heights from District 6 to District 7. These moves, in addition to addressing the population
imbalances present in the 2020 census data, generally resulted in all or most of Adelphi, Glenn

Dale, and District Heights being placed in District 2, District 4, and District 7, respectively. The

2021 Plan did not move the Collington Station area, as would have been required by the two-

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percent population deviation plan. It had a “core retention rate” of 98.6 percent, meaning that
under the 2021 Plan, 98.6 percent of the County population remained in the same district as in the
2011 Plan. Joint Statement of Undisputed Facts (“JSUF”) § 28, ECF No. 84; J.R. 1382.
Ultimately, the Commission did not adopt any of Heard’s plans because they “were not aligned
with the Commission’s guiding principles.” J.R. 1242.

After the Commission submitted the 2021 Plan and its Report to the County Council on
September 1, 2021, the County Council did not accept the Commission’s proposed plan and
instead adopted an alternative redistricting plan that differed significantly from the Commission’s
plan. The County Council’s plan was later challenged on procedural grounds because it had been
passed as a resolution rather than a bill and was ultimately invalidated by the Supreme Court of
Maryland in Prince George 's County v. Thurston, 278 A.3d 1251 (Md. 2022), which also held that
the 2021 Plan was the operative redistricting plan pursuant to Section 305 of the Charter. /d. at
1264. As a result, the Commission’s proposed plan—the 2021 Plan—took effect on November
30, 2021.

As a result, the districts delineated in the 2021 Plan were used for elections in 2022 and
2024. For the 2026 election, the candidate filing period closes on February 24, 2026, and the
primary election is scheduled for June 23, 2026.

Ill. The Illustrative Plan

Plaintiffs have submitted, as a tool to advance their arguments, an alternative redistricting
plan (“the Illustrative Plan”) prepared by their expert witness, William Cooper. In developing the
Illustrative Plan, Cooper applied the following “traditional redistricting principles”: having a
population deviation for any district of no more than 100 persons from the ideal district population;

having contiguous and compact districts, based on several recognized metrics for compactness;

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maintaining municipalities and other political subdivisions in the same district when practicable;
preserving other communities of interest, in particular, “the population within the inner Beltway
and along the Metro lines and stations,” which Cooper asserted are “distinct communities of
interest based on socioeconomic characteristics”; and “[a]void[ing] dilution of minority voting
strength.” J.R. 58-59. Cooper specifically did not consider “core retention,” or maintaining
populations in the same districts as in the prior plan, because of his view that it is “not a traditional
redistricting principle.” J.R. 59. Under the Illustrative Plan, the maximum population deviation
between any two districts is 0.13 percent, as compared to the 2021 Plan’s 6.86 percent; the districts
are more compact according to three compactness metrics; no municipalities are divided across
districts, unlike the 2021 Plan which splits six municipalities; and no incumbents are placed in the
same district. In addition, the Illustrative Plan places the Blue, Orange, and southern Green Metro
line corridors in single Council districts. However, the Illustrative Plan has a core retention rate
as compared to the 2011 Plan of 69.71 percent, substantially lower than the 2021 Plan’s core
retention rate of 98.6 percent.
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

Plaintiffs challenge the 2021 Plan on two grounds. First, they argue that the 2021 Plan
violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it fails to adhere the
principle of “one person, one vote.” Pls.’ Mot. at 1, ECF No. 19-1. Second, they argue that the
2021 Plan violates Section 305 of the Charter, which states that the Commission’s redistricting
plan “shall provide for Council districts that are compact, contiguous, and equal in population.”

PGC Charter, art. II, § 305.

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I. Equal Protection Clause

As to their equal protection argument, Plaintiffs assert that the 2021 Plan, which had a 6.86
percent maximum population deviation, violates the principle of “one person, one vote” because
it relied primarily on the principle of “least change” at the expense of prioritizing population
equality and other legitimate factors. Pls.’ Mot. at 16. They also argue that the prioritization of
“least change” was impermissible, in part because it was a pretext for applying the illegitimate
factor of favoring districts that promote the protection of incumbents.

A. Legal Standards

In Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186 (1962), the United States Supreme Court held that a
constitutional challenge to a State’s apportionment of seats in a state legislature based on the
alleged impairment and dilution of certain citizens’ right to vote was a justiciable controversy
under the Equal Protection Clause. /d. at 187-88, 198-99. However, the Court offered no view
as to the proper constitutional standard to apply to this issue and instead left it to lower courts to
develop such standards. /d. at 198, 226.

In Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S. 368 (1963), the Supreme Court struck down Georgia’s
“county unit system” for counting votes in the Democratic primary as unconstitutional under the
Equal Protection Clause because it effectively gave more voting power to voters in some counties
than voters in other counties. /d. at 370-71, 379. The Court found that the Equal Protection Clause
requires that “all who participate in the election are to have an equal vote . .. wherever their home
may be in that geographical unit” based on “[t]he conception of political equality” of “one person,
one vote.” Jd. at 379, 381.

In Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (1964), the first case defining the Equal Protection

Clause’s constitutional standards for apportionment of state legislative districts, the Supreme Court

1]

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held that the Equal Protection Clause “guarantees the opportunity for equal participation by all
voters in the election of state legislators,” such that seats in state legislatures “must be apportioned
on a population basis.” See id. at 566, 568. Specifically, a State must “make an honest and good
faith effort to construct districts . . . as nearly of equal population as is practicable.” /d. at 577.
However, the Court recognized that having precise equality of population in districts “is a practical
impossibility” and that “[m]athematical exactness or precision” is an unworkable constitutional
requirement, so it permitted “some deviations from the equal-population principle” as long as such
deviations are “based on legitimate considerations incident to the effectuation of a rational state
policy.” Jd. at 577,579. The Supreme Court later applied Reynolds to county legislative bodies.
See Avery v. Midland Cnty., 390 U.S. 474, 476 (1968).

In a subsequent application of Reynolds, the Supreme Court held that “minor deviations
from mathematical equality among state legislative districts are insufficient to make out a prima
facie case of invidious discrimination under the Fourteenth Amendment so as to require
justification by the State.” Gaffney v. Cummings, 412 U.S. 735, 737, 741, 745 (1973) (finding that
a Connecticut state legislative redistricting plan with a maximum population deviation of 7.83
percent did not on its own establish a prima facie case of a violation of the Equal Protection Clause
requiring a countervailing justification from the State). In Gaffney, the Court reasoned that:

Fair and effective representation may be destroyed by gross population variations

among districts, but it is apparent that such representation does not depend solely

on mathematical equality among district populations. There are other relevant

factors to be taken into account and other important interests that States may

legitimately be mindful of. An unrealistic overemphasis on raw population figures,

a mere nose count in the districts, may submerge these other considerations and

itself furnish a ready tool for ignoring factors that in day-to-day operation are

important to an acceptable representation and apportionment arrangement.

Id, at 748-49 (internal citations omitted).

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The Supreme Court has since defined “minor deviations” as those in “an apportionment
plan with a maximum population deviation under 10%,” defined as the deviation between the most
populous and the least populous district. Harris v. Arizona Indep. Redistricting Comm'n, 578 US.
253, 255-56, 259 (2016) (quoting Brown v. Thomson, 462 U.S. 835, 842 (1983)). Thus, “those
attacking a state-approved plan must show that it is more probable than not that a deviation of less
than 10% reflects the predominance of illegitimate reapportionment factors rather than the
‘legitimate considerations’ to which [the Court has] referred in Reynolds and later cases.” Harris,
578 U.S. at 259, 263 (finding that a state legislative district plan that had an 8.8 percent maximum
population deviation did not violate the Equal Protection Clause where the variations were based
on good-faith efforts to comply with the Voting Rights Act). The Supreme Court recognized that
“[g]iven the inherent difficulty of measuring and comparing factors that may legitimately account
for small deviations from strict mathematical equality, we believe that attacks on deviations under
10% will succeed only rarely, in unusual cases.” Jd. at 259.

Accordingly, because the 2021 Plan has a maximum population deviation of under 10
percent, Plaintiffs have the burden to show that it is more probable than not that the 6.9 percent
maximum population deviation reflects the predominance of illegitimate reapportionment factors.
See id.

B. Least Change

Under these principles, the Court finds that Plaintiffs have not met their burden of
demonstrating that the 2021 Plan’s 6.9 percent a, population deviation reflects the
predominance of illegitimate reapportionment factors. To begin, although Plaintiffs repeatedly
claim that Defendants must “justify” the 2021 Plan’s population deviation, Pls.’ Mot. at 17-18,

21, under Harris, absent a showing by Plaintiffs that illegitimate reapportionment factors

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predominated, Defendants are not required to justify the 2021 Plan. See Harris, 578 at 259;
Raleigh Wake Citizens Ass’n v. Wake Cnty. Bd. of Elections, 827 F.3d 333, 341 (4th Cir. 2016).
More specifically, Plaintiffs’ equal protection claim fails because Plaintiffs have not
identified an illegitimate factor considered by the Commission, much less one that predominated.
Factors that have previously been found to be illegitimate for purposes of this analysis include race
discrimination, see Bush v. Vera, 517 U.S. 952, 958 (1996), creating significant partisan advantage,
and regional favoritism, see Raleigh Wake Citizens Ass’n, 827 F.3d at 345, 351. Under the post-
Reynolds case law, legitimate factors can include compactness, contiguity, maintaining the
integrity of political subdivisions, competitive balance among political parties, compliance with
the Voting Rights Act, and preserving the cores of prior districts. See Harris, 578 U.S. at 258,
264. In the analogous context of congressional redistricting, the Supreme Court has found that
“legitimate” factors that could justify population deviations include not only “making districts
compact, respecting municipal boundaries,” and “avoiding contests between incumbent[s],” but
also “preserving the cores of prior districts.” Karcher v. Daggett, 462 U.S. 725, 740 (1983).
Notably, the Supreme Court has since clarified that limiting population shifts between old and new
districts is a form of “preserving the cores of prior districts.” See Tennant v. Jefferson Cnty.
Comm'n, 567 U.S. 758, 764 (2012). In Tennant, the Supreme Court, in rejecting a “one person,
one vote” challenge to West Virginia’s redistricting plan for congressional districts, held that a
plan whose “chief selling point was that it required very little change to the existing districts”—
effectively, a least change plan—was permissible even though it resulted in a higher population
variance than other plans, because “[t]he desire to minimize population shifts between districts is
clearly a valid, neutral state policy.” Jd. at 759, 761, 764. More recently, the Supreme Court

rejected a race-based challenge to a congressional redistricting plan in part because one of the

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plaintiff's experts had “failed to consider ‘core district retention’” as a “plausible explanation” for
population differences. Alexander v. S.C. State Conf. of the NAACP, 144 S. Ct. 1221, 1245 (2024).
In so ruling, the Court noted that the legitimate interest in core retention “recognizes [the] reality”
that “[l]Jawmakers do not typically start with a blank slate; rather, they usually begin with the
existing map and make alterations to fit various districting goals.” Jd.

This precedent firmly establishes that whether labeled as “least change” or “core retention,”
seeking to minimize population shifts between districts is a legitimate redistricting factor, and that
absent legal flaws with the existing map, there is nothing improper about starting the redistricting
process from that map. Indeed, despite claiming that least change was the “single illegitimate
factor” that rendered the 2021 Plan unconstitutional, Pls.” Mot. at 16, Plaintiffs conceded
elsewhere in their brief that “preserving the cores of the prior districts may be a legitimate reason
to justify some deviation from perfect population equality among districts,” id. at 17-18 (citation
omitted), and at trial they clarified that they were “not arguing .. . that it’s illegitimate to consider
core retention in the general sense” and acknowledged that core retention is considered a
“traditional redistricting consideration” in the case law. Trial Tr. at 10, ECF No. 90.

In the face of this reality, Plaintiffs suggest in their brief, and more clearly emphasized at
trial, that even if least change is a legitimate redistricting factor, the constitutional violation arises
from the Commission’s use of least change as “the primary motivator” in the redistricting process,
ahead of population equality, factors set forth in the Charter such as compactness, and other
legitimate factors such as “preserving communities of interest and avoiding municipal splits.” Pls.’
Mot. at 17-18. This argument fails because it cannot be squared with Tennant, in which the
Supreme Court upheld a plan for which least change was plainly the primary factor, even under

the more stringent test for congressional redistricting which requires justification for any

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deviations from equal population. See Tennant, 567 U.S. at 761, 763-64. More broadly, Plaintiffs
have identified no authority for the proposition that, in a challenge to a state or county redistricting
plan with less than a 10 percent maximum population deviation, the prioritization of one legitimate
redistricting factor over others renders it an illegitimate redistricting factor. Plaintiffs related
argument that it is illegitimate for a factor such as least change to predominate over population
equality is inherently flawed because, under that theory, no population deviations could ever be
justified. Such a theory runs directly afoul of Harris, which specifically provides that maximum
population deviations under 10 percent require plaintiffs to show that an illegitimate factor, not a
legitimate one, predominated. See Harris, 578 U.S. at 259.

Plaintiffs’ citation to Larios v. Cox, 300 F. Supp. 2d 1320 (N.D. Ga. 2004), aff'd mem., 542
U.S. 947 (2004), in which a district court struck down a Georgia state legislative plan with a 9.98
percent maximum population deviation, does not alter this conclusion. /d. at 1341-42. Although
Plaintiffs point to language in Larios in which the court criticized the State’s apparent efforts to
keep the maximum population deviation to no more than 10 percent and apparent ceasing of efforts
to reduce such deviations even further once that 10 percent threshold had been achieved, the court
specifically declined to decide whether this apparent use of a 10 percent safe harbor without any
efforts to achieve greater population equality violated the Equal Protection Clause. Jd. at 1341.
Rather, it invalidated the plan because it found, after extensive factual analysis, that the deviation
was based on the illegitimate factors of allowing urban and rural regions to maintain “their
legislative influence” at the expense of suburban regions, and of protecting incumbents in a
“wholly inconsistent and discriminatory way,” specifically, by protecting only Democratic
incumbents and arranging for Republican incumbents to have to run against each other. Jd. at

1341-42, 1347. Notably, in reaching this conclusion, the court considered whether the population

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deviation could be explained by legitimate factors, including “preserv[ing] the cores of all prior
districts,” but found that it could not because any core retention was not uniformly applied but
instead heavily favored Democratic incumbents while Republican incumbents lost much of the
cores of their districts. Jd at 1350-51 (emphasis omitted). Here, in contrast, there are no
illegitimate factors underlying the population deviations in the 2021 Plan, and the deviations are
clearly not based only on the adoption of a particular threshold but instead are based in significant
part on an interest in core retention, which is a legitimate factor.

Moreover, the record demonstrates that the Commission did not simply choose a threshold
believed to be a safe harbor and make no efforts to achieve greater population equality; rather, the
Commission considered but rejected the one- and two-percent plans in part because it received
significant public opposition to the two-percent plan from residents of the Collington Station area
in Bowie, as it would have separated them from the rest of Bowie. The Commission also
considered Heard’s alternative plans, which they characterized as “‘an entirely new plan,” but
ultimately rejected those alternative plans because they did not align with the Commission’s
guiding principles, including least change. J.R. 1242. Thus, the record reflects that the
Commission considered plans with greater population equality but concluded that they were
inadvisable based on legitimate factors, including core retention, maintaining municipalities, and
maintaining communities of interest, including in relation to Collington Station. See Harris, 578
U.S. at 258, 264; Bethune-Hill v. Virginia State Bd. of Elections, 580 U.S. 178, 183 (2017)
(describing “respect for communities of interest” as a traditional redistricting factor).

Finally, Plaintiffs’ reliance on Jn re Legislative Districting, 805 A.2d 292 (Md. 2002), is
misplaced. Beyond that fact that Maryland law does not apply to a federal claim under the Equal

Protection Clause, that case, rather than barring the prioritization of a legitimate redistricting

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factor, merely recognizes the uncontroversial proposition that political or discretionary reasons for
redistricting decisions cannot be relied on to such a degree that the plan does not satisfy applicable
constitutional requirements. See id. at 326. Here, under Harris, the federal equal protection
requirements are satisfied.

The Court therefore rejects Plaintiffs argument that the Commission’s use or prioritization
of least change amounted to the predominance of an illegitimate factor such that the 2021 Plan
violated the Equal Protection Clause.

Cc. Incumbent Protection

The Court also rejects Plaintiffs’ argument that the 2021 Plan violated the Equal Protection
Clause because the Commission’s focus on least change was a pretext for a “deliberate effort to
appease the County Councilmembers by preserving the political status quo,” such that the 2021
Plan resulted in an “impermissible incumbent-protection-driven deviation.” Pls.’ Mot. at 21. This
argument fails for multiple reasons. First, upon review of the record, the Court finds that, as a
factual matter, the focus on least change was not a pretext for incumbent protection. The
Commission explicitly stated in its Report, before any legal challenges were filed, that it “did not
consider incumbency, partisanship, or political impact” in preparing the 2021 Plan. J.R. 12. The
record of the Commission’s meetings does not reveal any focus on protecting incumbents; rather,
the transcript of the May 3, 2021 Commission meeting shows that the members were primarily
focused on ensuring that specific municipalities or neighborhoods, including University Park and
District Heights, were not divided from their traditional communities or were not unnecessarily
disrupted by a move to new district. Significantly, Robinson, the Chair of the Commission, when
asked whether by focusing on a least change plan the Commission was “considering incumbents

to a degree,” provided uncontradicted testimony that “[t]here was no way that we were considering

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incumbency of any type,” “I’m not interested in politics or incumbency,” and “that was not my
mindset.” J.R. 1198-99. He also testified that during the time period of the Commission’s work,
he had no discussions of any kind with any County Council members about the redistricting plan.
Plaintiffs have provided no meaningful evidence to the contrary and in fact, at trial, stated that they
“take Pastor Robinson at his word that incumbent protection was not the goal” of the Commission.
Trial Tr. at 17.

Although Plaintiffs argue that the focus on a least change plan indirectly advanced
incumbent protection because the 2011 Plan was unilaterally imposed by the County Council after
it rejected the Commission’s proposed plan, in fact, only one of the Council members who voted
on that 2011 Plan was still on the Council in 2021, and he held an at-large seat unaffected by
district lines, so using the 2011 Plan as the starting point for the 2021 Plan was not intended to,
and did not actually, advance incumbent protection in any material way.

Most significantly, the claim that the 2021 Plan was dedizned to advance incumbent
protection is wholly undermined by the fact that it was squarely rejected by the County Council,
which attempted to replace it with a different plan which, as reported in the media, was heavily
criticized by members of the public as designed to move potential candidates into new districts.
Had the 2021 Plan actually served to advance incumbent protection, it stands to reason that the
County Council would have embraced it rather than fought it all the way to the Maryland Supreme
Court.

The Court instead finds that the Commission’s focus on using a least change plan was
based primarily on the view, as advised by Dr. Persily. that where the release of the official census
data was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic such that the Commission initially had to rely on

projected data, a least change plan would “minimize the disruptive potential” of the delayed data.

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J.R. 1080. It was also informed by the lesson drawn from the 2011 redistricting cycle when the
County Council rejected a plan that started from scratch and preferred to work from the existing
districts.

More broadly, the record reflects that adoption of a least change plan is not the same as
seeking to protect incumbents. Although Dr. Persily stated at the Commission meeting that
incumbents probably like their districts, he also stated that in 2011, “some of them were not as
attached to their districts as we thought,” and that sometimes incumbents “would be happy to
change” them. J.R. 1080. Further, as explained by Dr. Jenkins, Defendants’ expert witness, a least
change plan provides substantial benefits unrelated to protecting incumbents. Specifically, it
provides “stability” and “continuity of representation,” which can be important because changes
in district boundaries raise “the costs of voting by raising the costs of becoming informed,” as
citizens must invest more time and energy in learning about their new representative and
candidates and in finding trusted sources of information about the available choices in their new
district. J.R. 1379-81. The Court therefore finds that the Commission, by focusing on a least
change plan, was not seeking to advance incumbent protection in the 2021 Plan.

Second, even if the Commission had considered general incumbent protection as a factor,
Plaintiffs have identified no authority establishing that such protection is an illegitimate
redistricting factor. Rather, the Supreme Court has suggested in other equal protection cases that
incumbent protection can be a legitimate factor. See Ala. Legis. Black Caucus v. Alabama, 575
U.S. 254, 258-59 (2015) (in assessing whether Alabama’s state legislative redistricting plan was
based on unconstitutional racial gerrymandering in violation of the Equal Protection Clause, listing
“protecting incumbents” among “traditional districting objectives”). Although Plaintiffs rely on

Larios, in that case the court found only that incumbent protection applied in a “blatantly partisan

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and discriminatory manner,” pursuant to which a redistricting plan was designed to protect
incumbents of one political party while undermining incumbents of the other political party by
placing them in the same district, was an illegitimate factor. See Larios, 300 F. Supp. 2d at 1341-
42, 1347-49 (noting that at the time of that case, the Supreme Court and lower courts had identified
only the specific issue of “avoiding contests between incumbents,” rather than “general protection
of incumbents” as a “legitimate state goal supporting population deviations”). There is no claim
that any such partisan, discriminatory incumbent protection was at issue here.

Thus, the Court rejects the argument that the 2021 Plan is unconstitutional based on any
allegedly impermissible consideration of incumbent protection.

D. Conclusion

In the end, Plaintiffs’ equal protection claim fails because, under Harris, where the 2021
Plan has only a 6.9 percent maximum population deviation, it is presumptively constitutional, and
Plaintiffs have failed to show that the deviation reflects the predominance of an illegitimate
redistricting factor, because “least change,” a form of “core retention,” is a legitimate redistricting
factor, and there was nothing illegitimate or improper about prioritizing it. Although Plaintiffs’
repeatedly claim, citing Reynolds, that Defendants did not “make an honest and good faith effort”
to establish districts “as nearly of equal population as is practicable,” Reynolds, 533 U.S. at 577,
the test established in Harris is the present refinement of the broad requirement articulated in
Reynolds, such that Defendants’ compliance with Harris is sufficient to establish the
constitutionality of the 2021 Plan.

In any event, the record reflects that Defendants, in fact, made “an honest and good faith
effort” in that the Commission chose the legally permissible approach of starting from the original

districts and applying several legitimate factors, including and most prominently least change,

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which made sense in light of the lack of final data at the outset of the redistricting process. The
Commission considered at least one plan, the two-percent population deviation plan, that would
have provided greater population equality but declined to adopt it in part because the Commission
received significant public opposition to moving the Collington Station area to a different Council
district, a concern that effectively validated the emphasis on least change and maintaining
municipalities in the same district. While Plaintiffs have offered the Illustrative Plan to show that
a plan with greater population equality is possible, that plan was explicitly developed without
giving any consideration to core retention or least change and thus has a core retention rate of
under 70 percent, meaning that under its terms, almost one-third of the County’s citizens would be
moved to a district different from their 2011 district. There was nothing illegitimate about the
Commission choosing to place a greater emphasis on core retention and to decline to accept the
disruption and increased information costs to citizens that would likely follow from plans such as
the Illustrative Plan. There is also no requirement that the Commission or the County Council
agree with Plaintiffs’ view that certain specific areas, such as Metro corridors, constitute
communities of interest that must be kept together in the same district at the expense of other
considerations.

Therefore, under Harris, the Commission’s choice to prioritize legitimate factors such as
core retention and least change, as well as maintenance of municipalities such as Bowie within the
same district, over marginally higher population equality or Plaintiffs’ subjective view of the most
important communities of interest to prioritize, does not represent the predominance of an
illegitimate reapportionment factor. Harris, 578 U.S. at 259. For all of the foregoing reasons, the
Court finds that the 2021 Plan does not violation the Equal Protection Clause and will grant

judgment to Defendants on Count 1.

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Il. County Charter

Plaintiffs also argue that the 2021 Plan violates the terms of the Charter, specifically, the
requirement that the Commission submit a redistricting plan to the County Council that provides
for “Council districts that are compact, contiguous, and equal in population.” PGC Charter, art.
III, § 305. In Count 2, Plaintiffs argue that the 2021 Plan violates the requirement that the proposed
districts be “equal in population,” and in Count 3, Plaintiffs argue the 2021 Plan violates the
requirement that such districts be “compact.” Jd.

A. Equal in Population

In Count 2, Plaintiffs argue that the 2021 Plan, with its 6.9 percent maximum population
deviation, violates Section 305 of the Charter because the plain language of that provision requires
that Council districts have greater population equality than is required under the Equal Protection
Clause and in fact requires “near zero” deviation among the district populations. Pls.’ Mot. at 12.
More specifically, Plaintiffs ask the Court to apply the standard applied to congressional districts
which, based on the Supreme Court’s interpretation of Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution,
requires that a State must “make a good-faith effort to achieve precise mathematical equality” and
“justify each variance, no matter how small,” and “permits only the limited population variances
which are unavoidable despite a good-faith effort to achieve absolute equality, or for which
justification is shown.” Karcher, 462 U.S. at 730 (quoting Kirkpatrick v. Preisler, 394 U.S. 526,
530-31 (1969)). In contrast, Defendants argue that the term “equal in population” is properly
construed as referring to the standard for equal population among state and county districts
required by the Equal Protection Clause, as established in Reynolds and its progeny.

The Court is not aware of any case, and the parties have identified none, that interprets the

term “equal in population” as set forth in Section 305 of the Charter. PCG Charter, art. III, § 305.

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Because when hearing state law claims based on supplemental jurisdiction, district courts apply
state substantive law, the Court interprets the Charter under Maryland law. See Mason & Dixon
Intermodal, Inc. v. Lapmaster Int'l LLC, 632 F.3d 1056, 1060 (9th Cir. 2011) (“When a district
court sits in diversity, or hears state law claims based on supplemental jurisdiction, the court
applies state substantive law to the state law claims”); Barton v. Clancy, 632 F.3d 9, 17 (Ast Cir.
2011). The Maryland Supreme Court has held that “[t]he canons of construction used to interpret
statutory language apply with equal force to the interpretation of a charter provision.” Thurston,
278 A.3d at 1258. As such, the “primary objective is to ascertain the purpose and intent of the
charter’s framers.” Jd. In assessing such intent, courts “principally focus on the plain language of
the challenged provision as the ‘primary source of legislative intent.’ Jd. (quoting O’Connor v.
Baltimore Cnty., 854 A.2d 1191, 1198 (Md. 2004)). Here, the relevant language of the Charter
was drafted by the elected Charter Board of Prince George’s County (“the Charter Board”), which
convened in 1968 and 1969, and adopted by the voters of Prince George’s County in 1970.
Plaintiffs primarily argue that the Court should adopt the ordinary meaning of the word
“equal” and point the Court to its dictionary definition, which is “of the same measure, quantity,
amount, or number as another” and “identical in mathematical value or logical denotation.” Pls.’
Mot. at 12 n10 (quoting, Equal, Merriam-Webster, — https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/equal, Pls.” Mot. Ex. 16, ECF No. 20-37). Plaintiffs, however, do not
argue for precise numerical equality across all districts. Indeed, the Supreme Court has stated that
in the context of redistricting, “absolute equality” is a “practical impossibility” and “hardly a
workable” requirement. Gaffney, 412 U.S. at 743 (internal citations omitted). By arguing that
“equal in population” should actually be interpreted as imposing the standard for congressional

redistricting which allows for some population deviations if they can be properly justified, see

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Karcher, 462 U.S. at 730, Plaintiffs necessarily acknowledge that they do not seek a literal reading
of the word “equal,” yet they offer no argument that the plain language of the Charter
unambiguously establishes that the Charter Board intended to adopt this standard.

The fact that the text of the Charter does not unambiguously establish a requirement that
the Council districts either have absolute equality of population or meet the congressional
redistricting standard is further illustrated by consideration of the surrounding text in the Charter.
See Davis v. Mich. Dep’t of the Treasury, 489 U.S. 803, 809 (1989) (“It is a fundamental canon of
statutory construction that the words of a statute must be read in their context and with a view to
their place in the overall statutory scheme.”); Lockshin v. Semsker, 987 A.2d 18, 29 (Md. 2010)
(stating that a court does “not read statutory language in a vacuum” or “confine strictly [its]
interpretation of a statute’s plain language to the isolated section alone,” and that “the plain
language must be viewed within the context of the statutory scheme to which it belongs”).
Although Plaintiffs cite only the sentence within Section 305 stating that “[t]he plan shall provide
for Council districts that are compact, contiguous, and equal in population,” PGC Charter, art. III,
§ 305, consideration of the entirety of Section 305 reveals that this language states only that the
redistricting plan submitted by the Commission to the County Council must meet this requirement.
Significantly, Section 305 also provides that “[i]f the Council passes no other law changing the
proposal, then the plan, as submitted, shall become law,” which necessarily establishes that the
County Council is not required to accept the Commission’s plan. See id. Indeed, in Thurston, the
Maryland Supreme Court confirmed that under the Charter, the County Council is not required to
adopt the Commission’s plan and may instead enact an entirely different plan, so long as it does
so through the standard legislative process. See Thurston, 278 A.3d at 1260. Notably, neither the

plain language of Section 305 nor Thurston requires that any alternative plan adopted by the

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County Council in this manner must comply with the “equal in population” requirement applicable
to the Commission’s plan.

Although the immediately preceding section in the Charter establishes requirements for the
Council districts themselves, it notably does not include an “equal in population” requirement. See
PGC Charter, art. IIT, § 304. Where the present language of Section 304, adopted by amendment
in 1980, states that “[t]he boundaries of the Council districts shall be established pursuant to the
provisions of Section 305 of this Charter prior to the filing dates for the 1982 General Election to
become effective on noon of the first Monday in December, 1982,” id. § 304(b), that provision
does not impose the “equal in population” requirement on Council districts because (1) the
reference to Section 305 necessarily incorporates the option of the County Council to reject the
Commission’s plan and adopt its own plan; and (2) by its plain language, it requires adherence to
Section 305 only with respect to the redistricting in advance of the 1982 election. See id. Notably,
the original 1970 version of Section 304 did not even cross reference Section 305 and thus likewise
did not generally require that Council districts be “equal in population.” See PGC Charter, art. III,
§ 304 (1970), 1973 Md. Laws 3194, 3204-05.

The Court therefore finds that when read alongside the other sections in Article III, the
identified language in Section 305 does not unequivocally establish a requirement that the districts
ultimately adopted by the County Council must be “equal in population,” much less one that
requires adherence to the congressional standard. While the requirement that the Commission’s
submitted plan have districts “equal in population” could have the effect of requiring the final
districts to meet this standard in the event that, as here, the Commission’s plan ultimately takes
effect by operation of law, it does not necessarily follow from the language of the Charter that the

Charter Board intended for a nonconforming plan adopted in this manner to be invalidated. Thus,

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where there is no claim that the term “equal” in Section 305 requires absolute equality, and where
the placement of the “equal in population” language in the Charter does not demonstrate a direct
prohibition on the adoption of a redistricting plan that does not meet that requirement, the Court
finds that, at a minimum, the text is ambiguous as to whether the Charter actually requires that the
final Council districts adopted by the Council must have “near zero” population deviation, comply
with the congressional redistricting requirement, or both. Pls.’ Mot. at 12.

“In situations where the statutory language is ambiguous” courts must look “beyond the
statute’s plain language in discerning the legislative intent.” Comptroller of the Treasury v.
Clyde’s of Chevy Chase, Inc., 833 A.2d 1014, 1021 (Md. 2003). In doing so, the Court may
consider the Charter’s “legislative history and other relevant factors that may reveal the intent or
general purpose” of Section 305. Jd. Upon consideration of all relevant factors, the Court
concludes that the reference to “equal in population” in Section 305 does not impose a requirement
that Council districts have “near zero” population deviation or comply with the standard for
equality among congressional districts and instead requires compliance with the standard for
equality required for state and county districts under the Equal Protection Clause.

First, the Court considers not just the term “equal in population,” but its placement in the
Charter. As discussed above, because the requirement was stated not as an absolute requirement
for Council districts, but as a requirement for the Commission’s plan that may or may not be
adopted, it is unlikely that the Charter Board intended by this language to take the momentous step
of establishing a more stringent requirement than the federal constitutional standard for state or
county legislative districts. It stands to reason that any such stringent requirement would have
been clearly stated in Section 304 as a requirement for Council districts, rather than in Section 305

as a requirement for the Commission’s plan that may or may not be ultimately adopted. The

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placement of this language within Section 305 suggests that it was intended to cause the
Commission to submit a plan that already complied with the federal constitutional requirements
for state or county legislative districts so as to facilitate the adoption of a final plan, whether the
Commission’s plan or an alternative plan adopted by the Council, that complies with the applicable
federal constitutional standard.

Second, the Court considers the historical context and available legislative history of the
Charter and Section 305. The language “compact, contiguous, and equal in population” has been
in Section 305 since the Charter’s inception in 1970. See PGC Charter, art. III, § 305 (1970), 1973
Md. Laws 3194, 3206. The adoption of the Charter and the relevant language came only a few
years after Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (1964), had established that the Equal Protection Clause
imposed an equality requirement on state legislative districts based on the principle of “one person,
one vote,” id. at 558, 568, 577, and Avery v. Midland County, 390 U.S. 474 (1968), which extended
Reynolds to county legislative districts, id. at 476. In Reynolds, the Supreme Court explicitly
rejected the notion that “equal population” required the arranging of legislative districts “so that
each one has an identical number of residents, or citizens, or voters,” which is a “practical
impossibility” and ‘“[un]workable,” Reynolds, 533 U.S. at 577, and instead accepted some
deviations from the “equal-population principle” to the extent that they were based on “legitimate
considerations incident to the effectuation of a rational state policy.” /d. at 579. Significantly, the
official minutes of the Charter Board reflect that at its July 21, 1969 meeting, the Board was
advised of Reynolds during discussions about how to draw Council districts. See Charter Bd.
Minutes at 65, ECF No. 88-1. At the same time, the minutes from those and other meetings leading
up to the adoption of the Charter provide no basis to conclude that the Charter Board had any view

that the federal equal protection standard was too permissive of deviations, or that it had any

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intention of adopting a standard for equal population more stringent that the equal protection
standard for state and county legislative districts set forth in Reynolds.

The conclusion that “equal in population” is properly viewed as requiring equality within
the meaning of the requirements of the Equal Protection Clause is bolstered by the Report and
Recommendations of the 1979 Prince George’s County Charter Review Commission, which was
tasked with “review[ing]| the provisions of Section 305 and recommend|ing] any changes in the
framework and procedures outlined therein” at the time when Prince George’s County was
transitioning to having Council members elected only by the citizens of their single-member
districts, as reflected in amendments to the Charter in 1980. Prince George’s Cnty. Charter Rev.
Comm'n Rep. & Recommendations at 13, ECF No. 88-3. The Charter Review Commission
“reviewed the requirements of Section 305 concerning the make-up of each district” and concluded
that “[t]he current language, when read together with relevant judicially espoused standards, does
provide an adequate safeguard for the establishment of Councilmanic districts.” /d at 14
(emphasis added). The fact that Section 305, which includes the “equal in population” language,
was viewed in this manner further illustrates that it is most appropriately read not as a literal
requirement of absolute or near zero equality, but as a term that was informed and aligned with the
relevant case law providing standards for the adoption of county legislative districts, consisting of
Reynolds and its progeny.

Finally, the available historical data regarding the application of Section 305, particularly
in relation to the time period immediately following the 1980 amendments, further bolsters the
Court’s conclusion. Generally, “*[lJong settled and established practice’ can carry ‘great weight
in’ resolving constitutional questions.” Moore v. United States, 144 S. Ct. 1680, 1693 (2024)

(quoting Chiafalo v. Washington, 140 S. Ct 2316, 2326 (2020)). “‘[A] regular course of practice’

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can ‘liquidate [and] settle the meaning of disputed or indeterminate ‘terms [and] phrases.’”
Chiafalo v. Washington, 140 S. Ct. 2316, 2326 (2020) (quoting Letter to S. Roane (Sept. 2, 1819),
in 8 Writings of James Madison 450 (G. Hunt ed. 1908)). Here, the 1981 redistricting plan, the
first plan adopted following the amendments to the Charter establishing that Council members
would be elected only by the citizens of their districts, had a maximum population deviation of 7.5
percent, and the more recently adopted decennial redistricting plans for which data is available had
maximum population deviations of 5.94 percent (2001) and 7.31 percent (2011). Thus, there has
been a practice dating back to the time period of the adoption of the relevant Charter provision of
approving redistricting plans with maximum population deviations of 5 to 10 percent, which would
be permissible under an interpretation of Section 305 that requires compliance with federal equal
protection standards but would likely be impermissible under Plaintiffs’ interpretation that requires
“near zero” population deviation and compliance with the standard for federal congressional
districts. The Court finds that this undisputed historical practice further supports the conclusion
that the “equal in population” standard in Section 305 does not demand “near zero” population
deviations but instead tracks the equal protection requirements as set forth in Reynolds and its
progeny, which do not require the justification of minor population deviations of under 10 percent
maximum population deviation absent the predominance of illegitimate factors. See Harris, 578
U.S. at 259.

Thus, the most straightforward interpretation of the Charter Board’s intent is that it
included the “equal in population” requirement for the Commission’s proposed redistricting plan
in order to comply with and align with the federal equal protection standard, such that the
requirement is most fairly read as requiring the submitted redistricting plan to have districts that

comply with that standard as expressed in Reynolds and as refined by its progeny, including Harris.

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It does not require a population deviation “as close to zero deviation as possible,” Pls.’ Mot. at 13,
a standard that has never been required under the Equal Protection Clause.

Plaintiffs’ arguments to the contrary are unpersuasive. Having rejected the federal equal
protection standard while also acknowledging that mathematical equality is not a practical
standard, Plaintiffs argue that the Charter’s use of the term “equal in population” must refer to the
more stringent equal population standard required for congressional districts, under which
congressional districts must be equal “‘as nearly as is practicable,” Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S.
1, 7-8 (1964), any population deviations that are not “unavoidable despite a good-faith effort to
achieve absolute equality” must be justified by the State, “no matter how small,” Kirkpatrick v.
Preisler, 394 U.S. 526, 531 (1969), and any such justifications must be shown “with some
specificity” to meet a legitimate objective that required the specific population deviation. Karcher,
462 U.S. at 740-41. Plaintiffs, however, identify no principled basis for interpreting the Charter’s
language in this way. Significantly, the stricter equality requirement for congressional redistricting
derives from the Supreme Court’s interpretation of Article I, Section 2 of the United States
Constitution, which states that “[t]he House of Representatives shall be composed of Members
chosen every second Year by the People of the several States.” U.S. Const. art. I, § 2; see
Wesberry, 376 U.S. at 7-8. Where the word “equal” does not appear in this constitutional
provision, there is no text-based argument for applying the congressional standard to Section 305.
Further, where the Supreme Court’s interpretation of this provision is based to a significant degree
on the specific “historical context” of its adoption by the Constitutional Convention as part of the
Great Compromise that established the bicameral Congress, see Wesberry, 376 US. at 7-8, 12-14,
there is no persuasive reason to conclude that the Charter Board, acting in an entirely different

historical context, intended to adopt the same equality standard as those cases. Finally, a review

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of the minutes of the Charter Board reveals that while they memorialize some discussion of
Reynolds, they make no mention of Wesberry, Kirkpatrick, or any other preexisting case defining
the equal population requirement for congressional districts, and they in no way reveal any intent
on the part of the Charter Board to establish a more stringent equal population standard than the
standard applicable to equal protection, much less to adopt the congressional redistricting standard.

Moreover, Plaintiffs’ argument that the term “equal in population” must require
compliance with the congressional redistricting standard because it was not qualified by the term
“substantially” also fails. Plaintiffs assert that because the Charter Board “had the example of the
Maryland Constitution” which provides that “[e]ach legislative district shall consist of adjoining
territory, be compact in form, and of substantially equal population,” Md. Const. art. III, § 4, its
omission of the word “substantially” demonstrates that it intended to impose a more stringent
equality standard than either the federal or state constitutional requirements for state or county
legislative districts. Reply at 9, ECF No. 66. This argument is flawed because although Section
4 of the Maryland Constitution previously had a similar provision, the term “substantially equal
population” did not appear in Section 4 until an amendment was adopted in 1972, two years after
the adoption of the Charter. See 1972 Md. Laws 1214-15.

In the end, where Plaintiffs acknowledge that the term “equal in population” cannot and
does not require actual equality of population across Council districts, the Court is required to
discern the intent of the Charter Board in adopting that language. There is no evidence to suggest
that the Charter Board intended to adopt its own standard separate and apart from any previously
articulated standard, and Plaintiffs have not identified or defined any such individualized standard.
As discussed above, upon review, the Court finds that the Charter Board intended to track the

federal equal protection standard for state and county legislative districts, not the congressional

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redistricting standard. Such an interpretation makes logical sense, because it is not at all
uncommon for state law provisions, even those with textual differences, to be interpreted as co-
extensive with federal law. See, e.g., Washington v. State, 287 A.3d 301, 336-337 (Md. 2022)
(“[W]e interpret Article 26 [of the Maryland Declaration of Rights] in pari materia with the Fourth
Amendment, meaning that the protections under Article 26 are coextensive with those under the
Fourth Amendment.”); Town of Riverdale Park y. Ashkar, 255 A.3d 140, 159 (Md. 2021) (“This
Court has recognized that Title VII is the federal analog to [the Maryland Fair Employment
Practices Act] and has expressly been guided by cases from the United States Supreme Court in
resolving discrimination claims arising under Maryland law.”).

Indeed, Plaintiffs notably have not identified any county within Maryland, or any local
jurisdiction anywhere in the nation, which has adopted and implemented a more stringent standard
for equal population across its legislative districts than the applicable equal protection standard
under Reynolds and its progeny, whether the standard for federal congressional districts or some
unique, individualized standard. The Court declines Plaintiffs’ invitation to find that merely by
using the word “equal” in Section 305, which on its face addresses only the requirements for the
type of redistricting plan to be submitted by the Commission to the County Council, the Charter
Board intended to take such a remarkable and unprecedented step. Thus, for the reasons stated
above, the Court concludes that Section 305 of the Charter does not mandate that the County’s
Council districts have greater population equality than is required by the federal equal protection
standard for state and county legislative districts. Because, as discussed above, the Court has found
that the 2021 Plan does not violate the Equal Protection Clause, it finds in turn that the 2021 Plan
does not violate the “equal in population” term in the Charter and will grant judgment to

Defendants on Count 2. See supra part I.

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B. Compactness

Plaintiffs also allege that the 2021 Plan violates Section 305 of the Charter because the
districts are insufficiently compact. As evidence, Plaintiffs point to their Illustrative Plan, which
they assert to be more compact than the 2021 Plan pursuant to various standard metrics for
assessing compactness. However, there is nothing in the text of Section 305 that requires that
districts proposed in the Commission’s redistricting plan must be the most compact districts that
can be feasibly drawn. Notably, in the context of interpreting the similar requirement in the
Maryland Constitution that state legislative districts “be compact in form,” Md. Const. art. III, §
4, the Maryland Supreme Court concluded that “the compactness requirement in state constitutions
is intended to prevent political gerrymandering,” that “irregularity of shape or size of a district is
not a litmus test proving violation of the compactness requirement,” and that “an affirmative
showing is ordinarily required to demonstrate that such districts were intentionally so drawn to
produce an unfair political result.” Jn re Legislative Districting of the State, 475 A.2d 428, 443
(Md. 1982). Accordingly, redistricting plans have “a presumption of validity, and it is not the
province of the judiciary to strike down a district as being noncompact simply because a more
geometrically compact district might have been drawn.” /d.

Here, Plaintiffs have made no showing that the Charter Board intended that the term
“compact” impose a more stringent standard than the Maryland constitutional standard and in fact
have not proposed any particular legal standard. Under the Maryland standard, Plaintiffs’ claim
fails because it relies almost entirely on the proposition that there are redistricting plans such as
the Illustrative Plan that could be drawn with more compact districts. See id. Significantly,
Cooper, Plaintiffs’ expert, conceded that although the 2021 Plan is “not as compact as the

illustrative plan, . . . based on my experience overall, it’s probably okay.” J.R. 920. A review of

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the map of the 2021 Plan confirms Cooper’s conclusion that the districts are sufficiently compact,
as none of the nine districts are notably irregular in shape, see J.R. 22, and while Plaintiffs’ report
on the 2021 Plan’s compactness scores under various metrics, they cite no authority for the
proposition that those scores establish insufficient compactness under any legal standard, federal
or — much less one applicable to the Charter. Indeed, at the hearing, Plaintiffs acknowledged
that the 2021 Plan “is not the most non-compact plan in the world” but instead argued only that
the record does not contain evidence that the Commission affirmatively made a good faith effort
to achieve compactness. Trial Tr. at 49. Plaintiffs, however, have provided no legal authority for
the proposition that the Commission was required, under the terms of the Charter, to do more than
achieve compactness. Rather, where the 2011 Plan was already sufficiently compact, and the 2021
Plan made only limited adjustments to that plan and resulted in a set of districts that remain
compact, there was no specific need affirmatively to focus on that issue.

For these reasons, the Court declines to invalidate the 2021 Plan based on the
Commission’s alleged failure to propose districts that are sufficiently compact under the Charter
and will grant judgment to Defendants on Count 3.

Because the Court finds in favor of Defendants on the merits of all counts, it need not and
will not address Defendants’ remaining arguments, including their laches argument.

CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the Court finds in favor of Defendants on all counts and will

enter judgment for Defendants. A separate Order shall issue.

Date: February 6, 2026

EODORE D. CHU
United States District J

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