Originally published by The Baltimore Sun on September 17, 2025.

Baltimore County’s newly approved redistricting plan is disappointing some residents and advocacy groups, who are skeptical that the nine new districts will increase minority representation on the council next year.

The redrawn map, which the council approved in a 5-2 vote Monday evening, came after more than a year of intense discussions about how to strike a balance between keeping communities together while also better reflecting the county’s increasing diversity.

It creates two majority Black districts, each with just over 50% Black populations, and one majority-minority district, all on the western side of the county. The remaining districts are majority white.

Though the five council members who voted in favor of the map said it would increase opportunities for minorities and women to be elected to public office, some residents of eastern Baltimore County disagreed.

Maureen Wambui, who rallied outside the courthouse ahead of Monday’s meeting, said the council’s plan did not reflect the area’s growing diverse communities, leaving it without a true opportunity for increased minority representation.

“Packing Black voters on the west while starving the east … is not representation – that is imbalance,” she said.

Though the map received the required five affirmative votes from the council, it’s unclear if the plan will face legal challenges. The council was sued hours after adopting a redistricting plan in 2021.

A spokesperson for Common Cause Maryland, a good governance organization, said the organization is “assessing all options to ensure a fair map, including possible legal action.” However, legal action has not yet been confirmed. A spokesperson for the ACLU of Maryland said Monday night that it would be looking at options as well, though they declined to comment on whether a lawsuit would be filed.

According to U.S. Census data from 2024, 50.5% of Baltimore County’s population is white, 31.4% is Black, 8.4% is Hispanic and 6.7% is Asian. The population has grown increasingly diverse since the county adopted a charter-style government in 1956. However, its current council is made up of six white men and one Black man.

Peta Richkus, a former Maryland secretary of general services and member of the Baltimore County Coalition for Fair Maps, said not all of the county’s minority residents were represented in the district map the council approved.

“It’s a disservice to over 200,000 residents in Baltimore County whose voices have not been heard by the council,” she said after the council’s vote.

Hundreds of residents submitted comments and spoke out about their visions for new council districts during the county’s redistricting process, which launched in January after county voters approved expansion of the council by two seats in the election last November.

The county’s redistricting commission, which was tasked with giving the council a recommendation, held multiple public hearings earlier this year before giving its final input to the council. The council, too, held its own public hearings, the most recent of which drew criticism from elected officials and residents who raised concerns about how the council drafted its original plan and called for more transparency in the process.

Councilman Julian Jones, a Woodstock Democrat, and Councilman Pat Young, a Catonsville Democrat, both of whom voted against the council’s final redistricting map, tried Monday to give residents more time to review and comment on various amendments to the redistricting proposal. Their request for more time, as well as their substantive proposed changes to the map, was rejected.

Linda Dorsey-Walker, who spearheaded the Vote4More coalition that sought to expand the council to 11 seats last year, predicted Monday that it would be “impossible” for a Black person from the entire western side of the county to be elected next year under the map the council approved.

Her brother, Keith Dorsey, Baltimore County’s former budget chief and the architect of the Woodlawn plan, expressed similar sentiments.

“Needless to say, I’m disappointed – disappointed in terms of the map that we worked on the last eight months didn’t really get a fair hearing,” he said.

Joanne Antoine, executive director of Common Cause Maryland, said in a statement that the council “failed” the residents who had worked for years to expand the council and increase representation.

“(The council) ignored an opportunity to pass a map with four majority-minority districts, which would give Black and Brown communities the equal representation they deserve,” she said, referring to the redistricting commission’s recommendation that Young attempted to revive Monday. “It’s disgraceful the council chose to put their political interests before their constituents.”