MOORE’S “IDGAF” MELTDOWN!

There’s a fine line between confidence and hubris.
Wes Moore doesn’t just cross it he sprints past it like he’s running the anchor leg at the Penn Relays.

Maryland’s governor seems convinced that redistricting is his personal arts-and-crafts table, where he can glue, cut, and color the congressional map however he wants. And no one, NO ONE, can tell him otherwise. Not the Washington Post, not Senate President Bill Ferguson, not the courts, not the Constitution, and certainly not anyone who actually studies election law.

And when the Washington Post editorial board, yes, THAT editorial board, called his plan a “gerrymandering ploy,” Moore brushed it off with the political version of a middle-school mic drop:
“I can respond in five letters: IDGAF”  ^WBAL-TV

Very statesmanlike.

Let’s talk about what’s actually happening here:
Moore wants all eight congressional seats. Not seven. Not seven-and-a-half. Eight. Because apparently, Maryland democracy is incomplete until Democrats assemble the full Pokémon deck of congressional dominance.

How do we get there?
A mid-decade redraw.
A “fair maps” commission, chaired by his political allies.
A process timed to maximize partisan advantage while pretending to be a civics lesson.

Now, here’s the fun part: the people telling Moore to SLOW DOWN aren’t Republicans. They’re Democrats. State Senate Democrats, no less. Including Bill Ferguson, who is politely trying to explain that maybe, just maybe, completely reopening the map halfway through the decade is a bad idea. You know… because courts exist. And judges exist. And precedent exists.

And because the U.S. Supreme Court exists.
Details, really.

But Moore? Does he listen?
Of course not.
Because he’s in his “IDGAF era,” where legal caution and political consequences bounce off him like Nerf darts.

Here’s the risk he refuses to see: if Moore and the Legislature get too cute, if they overreach, overplay, or outsmart themselves, the whole plan can blow up spectacularly. If the courts strike down the maps? This won’t be a minor hiccup. It will be a full-on political explosion.

And guess who draws the lines then?
Not Wes.
Not Alsobrooks.
Not the handpicked “fair map” commission.

Nope.
The courts.

The same courts that already slapped Maryland once for extreme gerrymandering in 2022. The same courts that hate mid-decade redistricting games. And the same courts that have a conservative majority at the federal level would LOVE an opportunity to take a bite out of hyper-partisan map shenanigans.

Picture it: Wes Moore, trying to engineer an 8–0 Democratic sweep, accidentally hands Republicans their best shot at a competitive map in 20 years. Because when courts redraw lines, they use neutral principles. Compactness. Communities of interest. Actual geography. Wild concepts.

In other words, no more “Praying Mantis Districts” stretching from Takoma Park to the West Virginia border.

Moore may be setting the stage for the mother of all political backfires.

And timing? Forget timing.
Mid-decade redistricting is the political equivalent of reheating seafood. Sure, you can do it, but everyone who knows anything is shaking their head, warning you that the outcome might be… memorable.

Maryland Democrats could have played it safe. Keep seven seats. Keep incumbents happy. Avoid the legal fight. Keep the national spotlight off Maryland’s map-machine politics.

But no. They wanted perfection.
And perfection invites scrutiny.
And scrutiny invites lawsuits.
And lawsuits invite judges.
And judges do NOT run on “IDGAF.”

Ironically, if Moore had simply said, “We’re waiting until the normal redistricting cycle,” even Republicans would have shrugged. But by going for mid-cycle redraws, Moore is practically writing the opening statement for anyone who sues.

If this reaches the Supreme Court, and it can, and it likely will, the conservative majority might happily use Maryland as the test case to clamp down on mid-decade partisan redraws nationwide. Imagine the headline:

“Maryland Overreach Becomes National Redistricting Precedent.”

Suddenly, instead of getting eight Democratic seats, Maryland might not even hold on to seven.

And the new map won’t have Wes Moore’s fingerprints on it.
It’ll have the courts’.
And unlike Wes Moore, the courts do GAF.

Big time.

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Endnotes

[1] WBAL-TV, “Maryland Gov. Wes Moore dismisses criticism of redistricting plan,” reporting his verbatim “I can respond in five letters: IDGAF.”

[2] The Washington Post Editorial Board, “Wes Moore embarrasses Maryland with his gerrymandering ploy,” criticized Moore’s mid-cycle redistricting push as overtly partisan.

[3] The Washington Post reporting on Bill Ferguson’s opposition to mid-decade redistricting based on legal and institutional risks.

[4] Politico, “Wes Moore launches Maryland redistricting commission after top state Dem stymies effort,” detailing Moore’s creation of the commission after legislative resistance.

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Rusty Sullivan is a contributor to Direct Line News. He can be contacted at Rusty.Sullivan@mcgopclub.com

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