Donald Norris, professor and chair of public policy, recently spoke with The Gazette for on efforts to create a Maryland House of Delegates single-member subdistrict in Montgomery County, which would ostensibly aid in the election of a Latino lawmaker to represent a largely-Latino area.
Those in favor feel that such a subdistrict would be beneficial in strengthening populations with common backgrounds and interests, while skeptics argue that these efforts could do long-term harm by creating uncompetitive seats and limiting chances to unseat incumbents. Norris listed a number of complexities to the single-member issue, speaking of issues involving parochialism, partisanship, the benefits and drawback of at-large districts and the history of redistricting, among others.
The story, “Single-member districts offer mixed-bag for minorities,” ran on July 13.
Tags: CAHSS, PublicPolicy
