Nine Marylanders backed by a civil rights organization out of Prince George's County filed a federal lawsuit Thursday aimed at undoing the new Congressional map passed by the General Assembly last month.
The suit alleges that the growth of black, Asian and Hispanic groups in Maryland merits a third "majority-minority" district. "Under this plan, African-Americans and other minority communities are fractured among multiple districts for the benefit of white candidates," according to the lawsuit.
Maryland's Attorney General has analyzed the map and determined that it would pass legal muster.
The suit also challenges Maryland's first-in-the-nation law that counts prisoners at their last known address rather than the state or federal facility at which they are imprisoned. In defending that law, Maryland's AG noted that other states are allowed to count college students and military families at addresses other than where they sleep each night.
The plaintiffs were assembled by the Fannie Lou Hamer Political Action Committee, a group founded last year to promote additional minority controlled Congressional and legislative districts. It will be funded, at least in part, by a group out of Iowa called the Legacy Foundation, said Radamase Cabrera, a spokesman for Fannie Lou.
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