HOME | DD

Description

Maryland (usually pronounced 'murrilund') was originally founded by the Calvert family (Barons Baltimore, hence the city's name) as an unofficial English Catholic colony in the New World. Officially named for Charles I's Queen Henrietta Maria, some suspect the name actually refers to the Virgin Mary. Maryland was also one of the English and British government's favourite destinations for dumping convicts (the American Revolution forced a switch to recently-discovered Australia). The religious mix led to unrest and eventually one of the first formal governing structures based on religious toleration in the mid-seventeenth century (although anti-Catholic laws were later imposed and then withdrawn again, the latter leading to a new wave of Catholic immigration from Ireland and elsewhere from the 1830s). A slave state but one which never joined the Confederacy, Maryland's sympathies were confused and mixed in the American Civil War, and this was reflected in divided politics following it. Unlike in the South, Maryland Democrats failed to pass bills intended to disenfranchise black voters, and both parties remained competitive. The only real constancy to Maryland politics is that the city of Baltimore has been Democratic since the 1940s. Notably the district presently numbered 6 has had only minor border changes since the very first House election in 1788, very unusual in the USA. Modern Maryland is known for some of the worst gerrymandering in the US, the result of borders being drawn by the Democratic-controlled legislature - meaning in 2014 for example the Democrats got 7 seats to the Republicans' 1 despite only winning the popular vote 57-41. However 2014 also saw the shock election of a Republican Governor, Larry Hogan, when it had been thought that the Republicans could no longer win statewide in Maryland. Hogan's victory was in part due to the unpopularity of the outgoing mayor, Martin O'Malley, and the fact that his opponent Anthony Brown was seen as O'Malley's protégé. By American standards, Maryland has fairly competive state legislature elections, interestingly using the same system of mixed one, two and three-member districts as most English councils.

2016-20: Hogan impressively won re-election in 2018, but on other levels of government there has been little change in Maryland.

Description

Maryland (usually pronounced 'murrilund') was originally founded by the Calvert family (Barons Baltimore, hence the city's name) as an unofficial English Catholic colony in the New World. Officially named for Charles I's Queen Henrietta Maria, some suspect the name actually refers to the Virgin Mary. Maryland was also one of the English and British government's favourite destinations for dumping convicts (the American Revolution forced a switch to recently-discovered Australia). The religious mix led to unrest and eventually one of the first formal governing structures based on religious toleration in the mid-seventeenth century (although anti-Catholic laws were later imposed and then withdrawn again, the latter leading to a new wave of Catholic immigration from Ireland and elsewhere from the 1830s). A slave state but one which never joined the Confederacy, Maryland's sympathies were confused and mixed in the American Civil War, and this was reflected in divided politics following it. Unlike in the South, Maryland Democrats failed to pass bills intended to disenfranchise black voters, and both parties remained competitive. The only real constancy to Maryland politics is that the city of Baltimore has been Democratic since the 1940s. Notably the district presently numbered 6 has had only minor border changes since the very first House election in 1788, very unusual in the USA. Modern Maryland is known for some of the worst gerrymandering in the US, the result of borders being drawn by the Democratic-controlled legislature - meaning in 2014 for example the Democrats got 7 seats to the Republicans' 1 despite only winning the popular vote 57-41. However 2014 also saw the shock election of a Republican Governor, Larry Hogan, when it had been thought that the Republicans could no longer win statewide in Maryland. Hogan's victory was in part due to the unpopularity of the outgoing mayor, Martin O'Malley, and the fact that his opponent Anthony Brown was seen as O'Malley's protégé. By American standards, Maryland has fairly competive state legislature elections, interestingly using the same system of mixed one, two and three-member districts as most English councils.

2016-20: Hogan impressively won re-election in 2018, but on other levels of government there has been little change in Maryland.