No Republicans were appointed Tuesday to the commission that will establish the boundaries of Prince George’s County’s nine council districts, after GOP candidates picked up only a small fraction of votes in the November general election. In the past, the Prince George’s County Council has typically appointed two Republicans to join three Democrats on the county’s Redistricting Commission, Council Chairwoman Ingrid Turner said.
| Also in Prince George’s |
| The 400,000 Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission customers told to boil water after Monday’s 54-inch water main burst will have to continue boiling for at least a few more days. |
| “We do at least two rounds of testing which will probably put us until Thursday before we’ll even begin to know when we’re going to lift the advisory at this point,” said Kira Lewis, a spokeswoman for WSSC. |
| Lewis said crews are still in Prince George’s County working to repair the water main. “This size main is going to take us at last two or three days to do the repair,” she said. – Alex Pappas |
But Republican candidates garnered only 3 percent of the total vote during the November council elections, Turner said. The county charter calls for appointing commission members of political parties that win at least 15 percent of the total vote.
“The only party that met the threshold was the Democratic Party,” Turner explained, noting that Democrats received 96.5 percent of the votes.
There are 403,582 registered Democrats in the county, compared to just 46,641 Republicans, according to the Maryland State Board of Elections.
The council on Tuesday voted to appoint three Democrats — Sharon Taylor, David C. Harrington and Tamara Davis-Brown — to the redistricting board. Tuesday’s resolution calls for the redistricting commission to present its 10-year boundary plan by Sept. 1.
The news did not sit well with Republicans.
“To suggest that the minority party should have no input into process shows you once again why it’s not a good idea to have single-party government,” said David Cahn, a Republican lawyer who served on the commission in 2000.
Mykel Harris, chairman of the county’s Republican Central Committee, said he’s “taking notice” that area Republicans have got to work harder. “We’ve got to do much better in order to get our message out and recruit candidates,” he said.
After Tuesday’s vote, Turner said she doesn’t think “it was contemplated” when the threshold provision was drafted that Republicans could be shut out. She said she’s open to having a conversation about changing it.
District 8 Councilman Obie Patterson said he agrees. “I think it probably ought to be looked at.”
“I’m shocked,” he added. “I really didn’t even think we’d have to cross this bridge because I didn’t think it would be that low. I thought it would have perhaps been 15 or more,” Patterson said of the Republican percentage in 2010.
Turner said Republicans had crossed the 15 percent threshold in prior elections. Alisha L. Alexander, the elections administrator for the county, did not return a call asking for verification of the numbers.
