Free Republic

Maryland Republicans are driving efforts to overturn the state’s newly drawn congressional map in a referendum next month, but they are joined by a number of Democrats who say their own party has gone too far in crafting districts for political gain. Numerous Montgomery County Democrats are scheduled to hold a news conference Monday in Rockville during which they are expected to urge a “no” vote on ballot Question 5, which would reject the district map drawn last year by Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley and approved by the General Assembly. Critics have accused the map’s makers of lumping disparate communities...

As Maryland voters prepare for a November referendum to decide the fate of the state’s new congressional map, Montgomery Gazette columnist Blair Lee chronicles the quandary faced by Democratic Party leaders in strongly Democratic, earnestly liberal and good government-oriented Montgomery County. On one hand, the newly drawn map — one of the most ridiculously gerrymandered in the nation — maximizes Democratic opportunities across the state. On the other, the new congressional lines are an indefensible affront to good government — an issue of concern in the affluent suburb of Washington, D.C., one the nation’s top goo-goo outposts.

ON SATURDAY, IT BEGAN. I was sitting at a table in my favorite cigar bar, drinking a Duckhorn pinot noir, and enjoying a Bolivar cigar that was part of my recent haul at Cigar Aficionado's Big Smoke evening. The house band had just started up. Life was good. And then she walked in. The Woman with the Dirty Looks. Apparently, she'd missed the sign outside that identified the establishment as the "Havana Cigar Company." And the walk-in humidor with its hundreds of cigars. And the counter, where cigarettes, lighters and all manner of cigar