What Did They Say?

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Browse major news stories and see what officials have said.

Tag: maryland ✕

A Maryland Judge Throws the Democrats' Mid-Decade Gerrymander Off the November Ballot — Ruling the General Assembly Broke Its Own Deadline and Wrote "Intentionally Misleading" Ballot Language

On August 26, 2026, Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Robert J. Thompson blocked a Democratic-backed constitutional amendment from appearing on Maryland's November general election ballot. The amendment was the vehicle Maryland Democrats had built during an August special session to let the General Assembly redraw the state's congressional map before 2028 — a map that would almost certainly have eliminated the Eastern Shore seat held by Rep. Andy Harris, the state's lone Republican in Congress and chairman of the House Freedom Caucus. Thompson found three separate defects. Lawmakers missed the statutory deadline they themselves had enacted in April for placing measures on the ballot; the ballot question's claim that it merely "clarifies" the Constitution's compactness standards was intentionally misleading; and the measure violated the single-subject rule by also handing the Maryland Supreme Court original jurisdiction over congressional redistricting suits. "Because the legislature did not follow the very laws it enacted," Thompson wrote, "the court finds the enactment of HB2100 to be legally deficient." Thompson stayed his own order pending appeal, and the state noted an appeal to the Maryland Supreme Court within hours. Gov. Wes Moore and the General Assembly's two presiding officers said they expect to be vindicated; Harris and Annapolis Republicans treated the ruling as proof that the majority had tried to rewrite the state constitution without following it. The case is the Democratic counterpart to the mid-decade redistricting fights the site has tracked in Texas, Indiana, Florida, Virginia and South Carolina, and its outcome determines whether Maryland can answer those maps before the 2028 cycle.

“I expect this case to receive prompt review, and I look forward to a clear ruling that affirms the General Assembly's constitutional authority.”

Bill Ferguson (D-MD) · Aug 26, 2026
redistricting
gerrymandering
maryland
8 statements

A Federal Judge Blocks the Trump Administration From Scrapping the FBI’s Greenbelt Headquarters and Diverting the Money to a Building Across the Street From the White House

On August 17, 2026, U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang permanently enjoined the FBI and the General Services Administration from moving the Bureau's future headquarters to the Ronald Reagan Building in downtown Washington, ruling that the agencies "exceeded their authority" and acted unlawfully under the Administrative Procedure Act. The dispute goes back to 2023, when GSA — running a competition Congress had structured in 2022 and 2023 appropriations laws — selected Greenbelt, Maryland, over sites in Springfield, Virginia, and Landover, Maryland, for a new FBI headquarters to replace the crumbling J. Edgar Hoover Building. In July 2025 the FBI and GSA announced they were abandoning that selection and would instead move the Bureau into the Reagan Building, blocks from the Hoover site. Maryland and Prince George's County sued, arguing the administration could not override a congressionally structured site selection or redirect the construction money Congress had appropriated for it. Judge Chuang agreed, holding that the statutes required GSA to pick from the three short-listed sites outside Washington. Maryland's Democratic officials — Gov. Wes Moore, Attorney General Anthony Brown, Prince George's County Executive Aisha Braveboy, and all eight Democrats in the state's congressional delegation — cast the ruling as a rebuke of an administration that treated a congressional appropriation as optional. The county has estimated the project at more than 7,500 jobs and roughly $4 billion in added GDP. The FBI pushed back hard in a statement, saying "the court has chosen to impermissibly intervene for political reasons" and that "this is not the first time courts have tried to undermine the administration in its goal to make government more cost-effective."

“Maryland and Prince George's County committed more than a decade of work to earn the FBI headquarters and pledged hundreds of millions of dollars. By blocking the Trump Administration's unlawful attempt to move the FBI to the Reagan Building and divert the funds Congress set aside for this project, the Court has cleared the path back to Greenbelt.”

Anthony Brown (D-MD) · Aug 17, 2026
fbi
maryland
appropriations
9 statements