Bulwark Takes - Meet the Most Hated Democrat in America (w/ Bill Ferguson)

Episode Date: November 21, 2025

After Lauren Egan wrote her newsletter Meet the Most Hated Democrat in America (https://www.thebulwark.com/p/meet-the-most-hated-democrat-in-america) about Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson has become the unlikely villain of the left, he reached out and wanted to come on and explain himself. All the attention was because he won’t redraw the state’s congressional map. He argues that pushing for an 8–0 Democratic map could backfire, thanks to a 2021 court ruling that reshaped Maryland’s entire redistricting landscape.

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please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hey guys, it's Lauren Egan here at the Bullwork. Last week I wrote a newsletter piece titled Meet the Most Hated Democrat in America. And the piece was about the president of the state Senate in Maryland, a man named Bill Ferguson, who is opposed to redistricting and is holding up the process in Maryland. And it's really pissed off a lot of national Democrats, some other local officials in a state who think that blue states have this moral imperative to gerrymander their congressional districts in response to Donald Trump's redistricting.

push, which of course kicked off over the summer in the state of Texas. And after I published that piece, Bill Ferguson reached out. He asked to come on the bulwark to talk about his position. So I have Bill here with me today. Bill, thanks for joining. I really appreciate it. Well, thank you, Lauren. Thanks for having me. And, you know, thanks for the most infamous title now, uh, known available. Yeah, I'm glad. I'm glad. Thanks for no hard feelings. Really appreciate it. I've got a 13 year old. So he, uh, yeah, I get called much, much, much worse on a daily basis. Yeah, there you go. There you go. Okay. So it would be great to start off with sort of walking me through. Give me a summary of why you are opposed to redistricting. Is it a good

governance thing? Is this like a deeply held anti-jerrymandering principle that you have? Where are you coming from? Yeah. And look, this question did not come as a surprise to us. Once we heard that Texas was going to be in the queue and potentially moving forward with a mid-cycle redistricting, we knew that Maryland was potentially on the agenda. This also isn't the first time that we've tried to make the first district, our Republican district in Maryland, more competitive. In fact, we did this exact thing in 2021 in Maryland. And so there is a broader national debate happening, which I totally understand. I think I am as angry as anyone about what's happening with the Trump administration, especially what's happening here in Maryland with our federal employees who have

been treated unbelievably horribly and the impact and fear that's happening in every community with ICE and sort of a paramilitary lawlessness. All of this is creating. what I understandably believe to be a fear of fight everywhere. And I absolutely understand that. But what we have to do and what the Maryland Senate caucus ended up where we landed was picking places where we can actually have an impact and where we can win. When you look at Maryland's laws and the context of Maryland and us having had a map thrown out in 2021, we know what the redistricting process looks like here.

We just went through it and had to scramble to make a new map after the court had already thrown out one in 2022. And so what is the absolute case and our perspective is that in Maryland, getting an 80 map is the least likely outcome possible given the Maryland context and this moment. And that our current 7-1 map by just going for an additional district is in the greatest jeopardy it could possibly be. And so what is more likely is that we would either stay the same or potentially lose Democratic representatives to Congress if the court decided to redraw the map itself, which is not unheard of in Maryland and just happened in places like Utah. So, you know, it's not a, I understand where people are coming from and I totally understand

the anger and frustration. We had to analyze it from a Maryland perspective. And that's ultimately how we came down on the question. There's two members of Congress from Maryland, Steny Hoyer and Jamie Raskin, who wrote a letter kind of in response to, some of your pushback and concerns about redistricting. Raskin's obviously a well-respected constitutional lawyer. And they argued that these legal concerns are kind of overblown. They essentially said, look, if there are legal challenges to a new map, it would just get kicked back to the state legislature or the status quo map would essentially hold. So I mean, it kind of sounds like you guys are, you know, in disagreement about what is actually potentially like

legally could happen here. Talk to me about that. And I mean, their argument is, you know, why not try? Why not get caught trying? What do you say to that? Yeah, look, and Jamie and I served together in the state senate for six years. I, you know, I have enormous respect for him. And, you know, we've spoken a number of times about this issue in particular. We have a different, a different calculus of the risk. And mine comes from the experience that we had in 2021. And when you go back in 2021, when we were looking at other states that were doing political gerrymandering, and we knew that the Supreme Court had said in 2019 that it was permissible for states to politically gerrymander. We did a whole process. We dotted every

eye. We crossed every T. At the time, everyone wanted to make the first district, a more competitive district. And I felt a little bit uncomfortable. We totally candid. I felt uncomfortable with the first map that we passed. But I was listening to folks who wanted to see a more competitive first. And I thought, look, this is, you know, I'm willing to help facilitate this process. And for the first time ever in Maryland in 2022, Judge Bataglia, a former state Supreme Court justice who oversaw at a trial level this case throughout our map saying that it was extreme partisan gerrymandering. That is not about the U.S. Constitution. She applied for the very first time the state constitution to federal maps. That is a brand new standard in Maryland that

nobody ever considered, but sets a different bar. Now, it is a trial court level. This is where it gets super in the weeds. The challenge is there's no escape hatch once you start moving forward. Once you try to start to change the maps mid cycle in Maryland, we lose our argument that the 7-1 map that we have today can stand. That's just you can't say to the courts, look, go back to the we already had because in order for them to throw out any map, they have to adopt this new standard that says that partisan gerrymandering is wrong. In the case that that happens, the court has a couple of options. One, they can redraw the map itself, which is what just happened in Utah. It also happened in Maryland for our state maps in 2002. Why did they do it in 2002?

Well, because they said that the primary election was too close and the legislature didn't have enough time to make a new map. And so the court decided to make its own. this isn't something that's just sort of made up. This has actually happened in Maryland. Two, they could ask the legislature to go back and redo the map under this new standard. The problem is, if the state Supreme Court adopts this standard of extreme partisan gerrymandering being a violation of the state constitution and declaration of rights, it means that we will have to then pass a map that is most likely either 6-2 or 5-3 to match our partisan registrations. So that is the outcome, the moment you start trying.

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promo code bull work takes for 40% off don't miss their best deal of the year. Is a 6-2 map like really that much of a possibility? Because, I mean, just looking at some of the margins from last cycle, there's a few seats that Democrats won with like 70 or 80% of the vote. You mean in the 24 election? Yeah. Which is a presidential election, not a, it's not an off year. And so I think that's an important factor.

We have a different turnout, a very different turnout in presidential years. in Maryland than we do in off cycle years. And so that's a feature. However, the reason it is so likely is because when we were going back through the old maps back in 2020 and 2021, the legislature put together the legislative redistricting commission. The governor at the time put together an independent redistricting commission that was entirely separate from the process that had existed previously. It was what he called a bipartisan. I don't know that. I don't believe that. It was called independent. I don't know if I fully believe that either. But that's what he was saying. And they did produce a map. And so what I feel very certain about is that if we were to move a map forward and there

were a lawsuit, what the plaintiffs would do is take the governor Hogan map that was that was had a whole process that is largely a six two map or a five to one competitive map and say to the court, the timeline doesn't work. So adopt this map. Why is that likely? It's a exactly what just happened in Utah, where the court said the timeline's too short, plaintiffs submitted a map as part of their case, and they adopted it. That is a very, very, if not the most likely outcome here in Maryland. And that is just a risk. I cannot imagine in this year saying that Maryland is sending more Republican congressional people to Washington in 26. That just feels like an absolutely unacceptable outcome. But if this is, you know,

All indications is suggesting, and certainly national Democrats really do think that this is going to be a wave election for them. The generic ballot has Democrats way out ahead of Republicans. So, I mean, like, what's your response to that, that in a wave year, that that could really happen? I totally agree. And that's what should happen. I think we saw it last, I mean, earlier is that people are angry at the lawlessness that is existing with the Trump administration. And so we should be fighting in every single district. I think that this is a time period where people are redefining the future of what government means, of what we expect from government, of what is tolerable behavior from public officials.

This is a moment for Democrats to stand up and be incredibly proud of who we are and what we represent of expanding opportunity for people. And so there are really competitive races across the country. You know, you look up in Pennsylvania, and Paige Cognetti, who is the mayor of Scranton, is just an amazing, amazing candidate. She is just doing amazing work in Scranton. She is running to flip a congressional seat from red to blue. We should be focusing all of our energy on those places where we've got great candidates who are focused on affordability and helping people to live and thrive. That's really where our energy is best focused. instead of sort of these intra-party in the weeds changing the rules conversations.

I just think at the end of the day, in a place like Maryland, we've got to look at the context and we've got to fight on the issues where we know we can have an impact and have a good case to make about what Maryland is doing to expand opportunity for people. I think some folks hear that and they say, well, this is the problem with the Democratic Party is that the Republican Party plays by a totally different set of rules and Democrats just like can't get with the program, you know, let's put the legal challenges maybe aside for the moment and kind of work through some of the other points that you've made in your opposition to redistricting. I know that you've expressed concern about if Maryland were to do this, it would kind of

start this whole like race to the bottom. I think in the letter that you wrote, sort of outlining your positions on this, you said that if Maryland redistricts, then Republican-led states that we're not planning to do so well. But don't you think that we're already there? like Republicans have kind of started this whole thing. And sure, there are some states that are resisting Trump's pressure campaign on this. But like, you know, what gives you any confidence that they ultimately won't cave to him? Look, I mean, Lauren, I don't think you can take the legal out of it. I mean, look what's happening in Texas, right? There was a lawsuit filed. Federal court says that it was a violation of the Voting Rights Act. We'll see what the U.S. Supreme Court says. But at the moment, the new map that they passed failed to stand up to legal muster. And so that one's being held back. But the Supreme Court, you know, hasn't really given us a total, you know, they haven't expressed a lot of confidence in that, in the Voting Rights Act. I mean, I think if we're being sort of honest about it, I don't know why we would assume that they would uphold that.

And I wouldn't say that I'm assuming. I can only just work with the facts as they are today. And the fact is that they said that the map that was passed can't be applied. On appeal, we'll see what happens. But look, there are, the reality is, if you look at states like Kansas, and Indiana, there are others who have chosen not to. If you look at it as a purely partisan exercise, all of the Republican states that could act versus all of the Democratic states that could act, it is not only mutually assured destruction because of the impact on democracy,

but at the end of the day, Democrats will lose. We have less seats that are under our control to be able to be redistricted. And so at some point, if you are a looking at the full map and as a whole and believe, okay, it's a domino effect and everyone's just going to race to the bottom, well, then we will end up five, six, seven, eight seats behind net. It's just a crazy argument because at the end of the day, we've got to win on the issues. We have got to, we have to meet people where they are and help them to see that the craziness that is happening with this administration is the opposite of what we represent. And so, you know, look, I understand California, California was in response to what Texas was doing. I think it's really important to

note that the states, the Democratic states that have moved forward, like Virginia and like California, already had independent commissions in place. They had a separate system that is not like Maryland system. Maryland didn't have an independent system. We had a legislative process that got us a map that has produced a 7-1 congressional delegation. California and Virginia are looking at removing their independent commissions and have more wiggle room based on their populations. That's a different status for a place like Maryland or a place like Illinois or a place like New Jersey where we don't, we didn't have those independent commissions. We've already been in the redistricting process. And in Maryland, we already had one map that would have made the

first competitive thrown out by the courts. And so those are the factors that are that are very specific to Maryland that make it a harder place. And I get the impetus to want to fight, right? like this whole idea, fight fire with fire. I totally get that. But you don't actually fight fire with fire, right? You fight fire with water. I mean, that's what you find a different way to engage. You have to be better and smarter and faster.

And you have to have a different approach to win. I think that's ultimately where our Senate caucus landed was we understand where it's coming from, but we don't want to be set up for a trap. We don't want to start a process that could end up sending us backwards. I want to talk a little bit about some of the pressure that's been put on you from national Democrats. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee commissioned a poll a few weeks ago that was basically meant to send a signal to you, I think. The poll showed that Marylanders were supportive of redistricting. How do you think about this?

If this is something that your constituents are down for, at a certain point, do you feel like you need to be responsive to that? or do you feel like you've got to sort of explain to them more about where you're coming from on this? How are you thinking about sort of the public opinion aspect of this? Absolutely. Explanation is everything. And look, when I first saw what Texas was doing, there was the moment of like, okay, what is Maryland going to do? But as a leader of a chamber and as a leader of a caucus, I believe I have a responsibility to really dive into the details of this and to really make sure that if we do something, it isn't higher risk and leads us down a negative path. And so what I have found over the last month since this has been sort of in the news in Maryland is that as I explain what happened in 2021, what could happen if we move forward and the possibility that Maryland would send one or two additional Republican congressional representatives to Congress to support Trump, almost entirely people have said, oh, wait a second, I didn't realize that. That's that risk is a bit too much. And so, you know, I've really focused a lot on local press. I'm, that's what I care. I care about Maryland. I'm watching.

obviously nationally. We are all watching nationally, but I care about Maryland. And so I've been really trying to communicate with Maryland voters about what's going on here. And you've really seen in the last month, once there's more information and once people see the context in Maryland, they second guess whether or not they believe that we should move forward. And that's the job of an elected official is to do the work of really trying to investigate these hard questions and then make the case to other members of our caucuses, to the public that we represent. And that's what we're trying to do here is to say, I understand that desire to fight. Of course, what I think Texas did was outrageous. What Missouri did was totally wrong. We just have to pick the right

places in where we push back. And that fundamentally is the message that we've been conveying. And I've seen it every single day. I have people coming up to me saying, like, I definitely thought we should redistrict. But thanks for writing that letter. Or thanks for doing that interview. I didn't realize what could happen if we actually did this. And I think that's ultimately, that's the job is to communicate to people about how can we best fight for them? How can we focus on the issues they care the most about? There have been calls to primary you and you, at least one person has announced that they are going to run against you. His name is Captain Bobby and he cited redistricting specifically in his decision to primary you. Do you feel like the politics of this

are eventually going to be untenable and you'll have to back down. Like, how are you kind of thinking about that? Because, like, the whole conversation we've been having this year is just Democrats wanting their leaders to fight whatever that means to them. And redistricting is obviously just another example of kind of a test case for that. So how do you kind of see this playing out? I would say, first of foremost, it's a democracy. So, of course, I think elections are a positive thing. So I would never decry anybody for running in any way, shape, or form. I, you know, I think that it helps to be able to have an opportunity to explain people. I'm really proud of my record. I think I've been able to really deliver for people in my district, in the city of Baltimore

and across the state of Maryland. We've been able to do some pretty historic things like record increases in public education through the blueprint for Maryland's future. We've expanded health care to more Marylanders than almost any other state in the country. We've found ways to pass one of the most aggressive climate policies in the country. These are all things that as the president of the Senate and as the senator for the 46 district, I have been able to deliver on and fight for for the people I represent. So I look forward to being able to talk about those victories that we've had. And yet I recognize that people are angry right now. They are scared and they are seeing a Trump administration and norms of institutions get decimated. I believe in this

moment right now, the best thing that the Democratic Party can do is to provide that alternative to give people hope to focus on the things that are making them scared about their future. People are worried about their kids, not having the same abilities that they did when their kids become adults. It is a real fear. And I think we have to provide a path that is not just we fight as dirty as they do. It is we are actually listening to our constituents. We are delivering for them. We are providing opportunity. We are lowering prices. We are doing the things that matter to make their lives easier. That is an argument that I would love to or I look forward to making over the next few months. Let's say that the governor were to call a special session tomorrow. Would you block a vote

on the floor on this? Yes or no? Look, all those are, I don't think that we'll have a special session. I don't believe that that is the most likely outcome. I know that there's, there's conversation around it. I think the biggest challenge here is that the timing is almost already too late. Our filing deadline is within that 100-day window that we know that there would have to be a court case figured out. So we're sort of in a bit of uncharted territories generally. I don't foresee that happening. I'm sure we will have conversations about this during session. And we'll see where we are at that time. Okay, Bill, I really appreciate you coming on the bulwark, chatting with us about this, and keep us updated on everything that's going on in Maryland. Absolutely. Thank you,

Lauren, and look forward to staying in touch.