I, For One, Welcome Our New 8th District Overlords
It always bothered me that the Maryland congressional districts were drawn in such a way that that people who live but a couple blocks away from me were represented by a different congressperson and that my representative was inevitably chosen by PG County voters.
Now, with the re-gerrymandering of the voting districts nearly complete, all Silver Springers will soon be living within the boundaries of Maryland's 8th District, or at least they will for the next ten years.
Here are the current district maps:
And here are the new district boundaries within Montgomery County:
I'm not the biggest fan of gerrymandering (for either side), but at least the new map doesn't have Silver Spring split down the middle.
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13 comments:
It would appear, though, that minority groups aren't too happy about that as those living in East Silver Spring will now be represented by Chris Van Hollen rather than Donna Edwards.
I'll miss Donna too, and I'm whiter than Van Hollen's pasty Dutch ass.
When Van Hollen was first running it seemed like he didn't know where his district was, because I kept getting his campaign literature in the mail. But I guess he was just planning ahead.
Well if Montgomery County is majority minority, does that make everyone a minority (or no one a majority)?
MOST of Silver Spring will be in District 8. There's a small pocket south of NH Ave. and US 29 that will be in District 3, with parts of Howard, Anne Arundel, and disconnected sections of Baltimore City and County. (Hey Pikesville!) Still not Donna's district - she's been limited to PG and southward.
Hi all,
Random question. I'm moving from inside DC to Silver Spring. Will my income taxes be higher or lower? Thx!
Looks like DC income tax is pretty substantially higher than MD's. And MD has a higher exemption to boot.
http://www.taxadmin.org/fta/rate/ind_inc.pdf
And welcome!
This is good news. The current boundary was so odd I thought it was drawn just to put me in the 4th district. I could cross the street and be in different district.
I wish they'd stop the district at the PG county border. The PG folks, probably, feel like we did 10 years ago - outsiders.
I think this will be good for the purple line. I've always thought Van Hollen has been riding the fence on the issue. I think he'll need to be more supportive now.
I'm happy with either VanHollen or Edwards. I get more annoyed with the State level folks. My reps cover Takoma Park and this little wedge of DTSS. I get frustrated reading their posts on Facebook or mailings, where they seem to forget about the DTSS bit or assume that the interests of Takoma Park are, of course, the interests of DTSS.
Anon 1 - I'm in East SS and currently repped by Van Hollen as are all of us south of Sligo Ave. Glad this will unify the DTSS 'hood, but am sad we are not going Donna Edwards' way.
We were Gerrymandered into the 4th District 20 years ago; the Gerrymandering continued and became even worse 10 years ago. It is about time the legislature stops using Silver Spring residents as pawns to given adequate population to a district dominated by Prince Georges County. Al Wynn was horrible. Edwards has been much better, but I'd still prefer being in District 8 with other Montgomery County voters.
Im just elated that Im no longer in Valerie Ervin's district....My understanding is that Navarro's constituent services people bother to care, or at least return emails and phone calls.
Some of "Silver Spring" (Aspen Hill) is in District 6 with Hagerstown, Cumberland and Deep Creek. The gerrymandering is shameless.
Val Ervin was responsive enough after a single e-mail to get the State Highway Administration and MC DOT to start a study of the reversible lanes on Colesville - specifically in the evenings when the backup is inbound not outbound. Wonderful when it's backed up to Dale the night of a Fillmore concert.
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