All eyes are on the Maryland Senate as President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) says a proposed Democratic-leaning Congressional map will not make it to the Senate floor for a vote.

The new map — drawn years before Congressional redistricting is generally taken up following a national census — could loop enough Democratic voters into Maryland’s District 1 to vote out long-time Republican Congressman Andy Harris.

The map is supported by Gov. Wes Moore, House Speaker Joseline Peña-Melnyk (D-Anne Arundel and Prince George’s Counties) and all but one Democrat within the House of Delegates.

Being at odds with Maryland’s chief executive and his Democratic colleagues in the opposite chamber has thrust Ferguson into the spotlight, but other senators are making their voices heard on redistricting.

Sen. Arthur Ellis (D-Charles County) gave an impassioned speech Thursday on the impact Trump administration policies are having on Black and Brown communities, citing racial injustice as reason to move the new map forward.

Ellis ended up leaving the Senate floor in protest and said he would “not come back to [his] podium” until the mid-cycle redistricting bill is brought to the floor for a vote.

Gov. Wes Moore took to X — formally Twitter — to commend Ellis’s protest and request, once again, that the Senate vote on the bill.

“I applaud [Sen. Ellis]’s commitment to his constituents and American democracy. Marylanders have weighed in. The House has spoken. It’s up to the Maryland Senate to hold the vote,” the post reads.

Moore’s Senior Press Secretary Ammar Moussa also offered a written statement in support of Ellis’s call for a vote.

“Senator Arthur Ellis is underscoring what more and more Marylanders are feeling every day: this is an urgent moment, and we cannot afford to sit on the sidelines– especially as we see real consequences coming out of Washington that hit Maryland families and communities,” Moussa said.

But the one person Ellis needs to convince remains unwavering in his stance.

“I have a deep respect for Sen. Ellis… We've had this conversation a great deal in the caucus over the last several months, in groups and in larger settings. The Senate as a whole, the strong majority still believes, at the end of the day, that while we we have fundamental agreement that what's happening at the federal level is unconscionable, in this moment in time, we have to do whatever it takes to ensure that we do not go backwards,” Ferguson said at a press conference Friday.

The Senate president has listed various reasons for his opposition to mid-cycle redistricting since October, including timing ahead of the 2026 election, national implications, racial gerrymandering and perhaps most pointedly, a desire to focus on statewide issues.

“When I am in my community and when I'm talking to my constituents, they're not talking about this,” Ferguson told members of the media last week, citing federal immigration officer enforcement tactics, high energy bills and prescription drug costs as more pressing concerns.

But with pressure to vote on the bill coming at the Senate president from all angles, Ferguson is putting extra emphasis on his belief that early redistricting lives in dicey legal waters.

It’s not customary to bring a bill forward in the Senate unless it has the votes to pass, but when asked why he wouldn’t consider doing so to put the proposed map to rest once and for all, Ferguson pointed to something called the doctrine of laches.

“Each new legislative step undermines, in a proportional way, the state's ability to defend the current map under the doctrine of laches,” Ferguson said Friday. “And so at the end of the day, that's a major reason why we have to make it clear we cannot risk losing another representative to Congress.”

The doctrine of laches keeps a plaintiff from bringing up an unreasonably delayed claim — hence why the current map, drawn in 2022, is unlikely to receive a court challenge at this point in time.

Maryland’s current Congressional map has never been court tested, despite it being the remedy for a redistricting lawsuit four years ago when Democrats drew a map that a judge struck down over “extreme partisan gerrymandering.”

Eight of Maryland’s seven districts are held by Democrats, and Ferguson worries that an inevitable court case over the proposed Democrat-leaning map, if implemented, could dissolve the current map’s protection under the doctrine of laches and trigger an additional court case.

Ferguson says a vote in the Senate — even if it’s to vote the new map down — could help build a case for anyone looking to challenge the current map’s legality.

Not only would that leave the state defending two different Congressional maps before the November election, but Ferguson raised concerns over a judge ruling the current 7-1 map unconstitutional, forcing Democrats to possibly surrender one of its seats to the GOP.

“We cannot pass a map that leads to, ultimately, a 6-2 result. The timing, the constitutional structure here in Maryland, is the basis by which we came to this conclusion, and so that has not changed. We cannot risk losing representation in this moment with this federal administration, and so that risk is just simply too great,” Ferguson said.

Despite Ellis’s defection last week, other Democratic senators appear to remain united behind Ferguson, like Sen. Cheryl Kagan (D-Montgomery County).

Kagan says she has the “highest respect” for Moore, but she agrees with Ferguson’s argument that the Senate has other policy matters to focus on.

“I wish the governor would just see the writing on the wall and move on. We need to talk about energy costs. We need to talk about affordable housing. We need to talk about employment. We need to be fighting Trump administration policies. Anything that distracts us from that is not helpful,” she said in an interview.

“Rather than going from seven Democrats and one Republican, we could backslide and end up as six and two or even five and three. It is a high risk, and I think the chances of reward are low,” she added.

Kagan confirmed that within Senate Democratic Caucus talks, there is an “overwhelming consensus that a mid-decade redistricting is not the right move” for Maryland or the Democratic Party.

There is a Senate rule that allows one-third of the Senate — 16 members — to petition a bill to the floor if it’s been sitting in a committee for more than 20 days.

The proposed Congressional map reached the Senate Rules Committee on Wednesday.

There are 34 Senate Democrats, meaning just under half of the caucus would have to pull away from Ferguson to force a vote, but the Senate president says he is confident the majority of senators stand with him and he does not foresee the rule being used.

But relief for the Senate does not appear imminent as Moore continues his call for a vote and advocacy groups do the same.

National voting rights group Black Voters Maryland has committed to a five-figure ad-buy in the Maryland region to call for a vote, according to a press release from the organization.

The group also organized a “direct action” for Monday evening at the Miller Senate Office Building, asking Black clergy members to rally in favor of a vote on the proposed map.