Does impending election filing deadline crush Moore’s redistricting dreams? Maybe.

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With Maryland’s campaign filing deadline just days away, some may consider legislation to redraw the state’s congressional districts ahead of the 2026 midterm election to be on death’s doorstep.

Others, however, disagree.

Currently, the filing deadline is set for Tuesday.

Legislation introduced by House Government, Labor and Elections Committee Chair Melissa Wells, D-Baltimore City, and Del. Kris Fair, D-Frederick, would move the campaign filing deadline to March 20 — for congressional candidates, only. 

“It does not move the primary date, it does not affect races for any other office and it has no fiscal impact. [The State Board of Elections] has confirmed they can easily make the change without any other changes being necessary,” Fair said during the bill’s hearing. “When the Senate advances the congressional map that the House has already approved, this bill ensures that candidates have the time to consider running and file in their appropriate district.”

The legislation is an emergency bill and, if passed, would go into effect immediately upon receiving Gov. Wes Moore’s signature. The House Government, Labor and Elections Committee has yet to vote the bill to the House floor.

The bill’s hearing was held in Wells’ committee Feb. 11 — the same day as Moore’s State of the State address, where he called on Senate President Bill Ferguson, D-Baltimore City, to put the congressional redistricting legislation on the floor for a vote.

“I know I haven’t always made life easy for the House or the Senate. I know there are times when you have not made life easy for each other. And you know what? That’s okay! That’s democracy. It’s messy. It’s combative. It’s complicated, and it’s worth fighting for,” Moore, a Democrat, said. “I know there’s disagreement right now between the House and members of the Senate, so my ask is simple: Do not let the democratic process die in the free state. Debate it, discuss it, make adjustments if necessary. And put it to a vote.”

After it passed out of the House chamber largely along party lines, the bill was sent to the Senate Rules Committee, where it is poised to remain as it has for the past two weeks.

Currently, nine of 10 seats in Maryland’s congressional delegation are held by Democrats, including both U.S. Senate seats.

The legislation passed by the House would likely hand an 8-0 map to Democrats in the U.S. House, effectively ousting Congressman Andy Harris, the lone Republican and an ally of President Donald Trump.

It would also put forth a ballot referendum to allow Maryland voters to determine if that map should only remain in effect for the 2026 election, or if it would also apply in 2028 and 2030.

With the encroaching campaign filing deadline, all eyes are trained on Ferguson, who has been in staunch opposition to midcycle redistricting since before the discussion seriously began in the state.

Wednesday, U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-NY, held a 45-minute meeting in Annapolis with Ferguson to discuss the merits of moving the new map forward.

A source familiar with both the meeting and the Senate said that the discussion was “constructive” and focused “almost entirely on the legal merits of midcycle redistricting in Maryland.”

Ferguson also explained to Jeffries that, because the bill contains a ballot referendum, it would need 29 Senate votes to pass. The source said the votes are currently “well below” that threshold.

Still, Jeffries challenged where members of the Senate stand, issuing a statement upon leaving Annapolis that said that Ferguson “authentically believes that the votes don’t exist in the State Senate to move forward.”

“The only way to find out is to allow an immediate up-or-down vote on the Senate floor with respect to the new congressional map passed by the House of Delegates,” said Jeffries.

Maryland’s current 7-1 map has never been reviewed by the courts. Ferguson fears that, if the Senate were to take up the map passed by the House, it would put both that map and the current map in jeopardy and could lead to the loss of more than one democratically controlled district via a court-drawn map.

Jeffries and Moore have also — in so many words — said that the Feb. 24 filing deadline is a formality, the governor saying that “every single deadline that is put together” was done so by politicians, “so that means politicians can also change it,” and the U.S. House Minority Leader arguing that Democrats can’t “impose deadlines on ourselves … when Donald Trump and the extremists are trying to rig the midterm elections.”

As of noon Thursday, Moore had not yet filed for reelection.

But can the legislature move the filing deadline after the one set by the State Board of Elections has already passed?

In a Monday interview with The Daily Record, former Attorney General Brian Frosh, a Democrat, said that, should the Senate have a change of heart after the Feb. 24 campaign filing deadline, they have the power to have it moved.

“That would be of no consequence to my decision as a legislator, because that’s the world we’re in,” Frosh said. “The U.S. Supreme Court, the President of the United States and his Republican followers have decided that’s what they’re going to do … to squeeze it for whatever advantage they can.”

A source close to the Senate said Wednesday that, “in theory,” the legislature has the power to move the campaign filing deadline, even after it passes. But not without a caveat.

“I think the point that the Senate president is trying to make is that, if Democracy is being attacked at the national level and we are trying to bolster it at the state level, … the worst possible thing that we could do is create chaos in the administration of the election, the timelines, the idea of running one election for state office and another election for federal office,” they said.

House Minority Leader Jason Buckel, R-Allegany, disagrees, saying Wednesday that the legislation introduced by his Democratic colleagues to move the filing deadline would have to pass both chambers and make it to Moore’s desk before Tuesday’s end — which would be a Herculean feat — but that the courts could change the deadline if the map actually made it to Moore’s desk and faced inevitable legal challenges.

“Once we hit next Wednesday, your right to run as a candidate in Maryland has already been foreclosed by law,” Buckel, an attorney, said.