Maryland Court of Appeals says local election process is up to Assembly

Paper: Daily Record, The ( Baltimore, MD)

Date: June 25, 2007

The Maryland Court of Appeals has darkened the line between the judicial and legislative branches, ruling that a court-authorized change in local election procedure was unconstitutional. Only the General Assembly can pass changes in election law for any municipality, the court held. "We fully understood that this was an issue that turned in the eyes of the court on separation of powers, and that the creation of local government forms was purely a legislative function and not a judicial one," said Dana Lee Dembrow, an appellee, who expressed disappointment but said he was not surprised by the decision. "This opinion puts the responsibility squarely in the lap of the state legislature," he added. At issue in the case was a consent order approved by the Carroll County Circuit Court in April, establishing five commissioner districts along the lines of a map known as Option 2. In 2004, the county voters approved a referendum passed by the state legislature to expand the three-member at-large county board of commissioners to five commissioners from individual districts. The serving county commissioners appointed a bipartisan committee to make recommendations to the county's state legislators for the boundaries of the five new districts. The committee drafted two plans and recommended Option 2. However, the county's legislative delegation rejected that recommendation and chose a map known as Option 1 to bring to the Maryland General Assembly for approval. Supporters of Option 1, including Joseph M. Getty, an attorney and appellant in the case, argued that Option 2 gave advantages to the Democratic minority in the county. However, Dembrow, a member of the state Board of Contract Appeals and former Democratic legislator from Montgomery County, said that Option 2 had strong support from the county mayors and the current county commissioners. The disagreement appeared moot when the state legislature failed to pass the bill that would have codified the commissioner districts according to the Option 1 map, and the county was left without redrawn districts. The county board of commissioners, acting on the advice of the attorney general, deemed that voters would elect five at-large county commissioners for this year's election. Then Dembrow intervened. As a result, the county elections board and Dembrow won a consent order from the county circuit court authorizing elections of the county commissioners using the committee-recommended Option 2 map. Last week, less than two weeks before the county's candidacy filing deadline, the state's highest court deemed the lower court's action unconstitutional in a 39-page opinion written by Chief Judge Robert M. Bell. "Because we conclude that, as ordained by the Constitution, the power and authority to designate the method of election ultimately, and exclusively, lies with the legislature, we shall hold that the circuit court's approval of the consent order authorizing a change in the method of election of county commissioners was a clear violation of … the Maryland Constitution," Bell wrote. The court also said that, because it would be a violation of the separation of powers, it could not dictate which district map should be used in the upcoming election, and directed that the county default to electing three at-large county commissioners in November. When asked how he felt about the decision, Dembrow said he understood the logic, but that it was tough to take because the voters had "clearly" expressed a desire in the referendum to elect five district commissioners. "It was a bit like lighting a candle in the dark only to have someone blow it out," he said. Getty called the decision "significant" and said it had implications beyond Carroll County. "I think the court was establishing the precedent for judicial review of county political redistricting boundaries," he said. "While the Court of Appeals has taken up redistricting before, it's been primarily at the state level. They state that the same principles that exist for judicial review for state boundaries exist for local boundaries."

Author: Liz Farmer