Congressional Representatives from Maryland’s First District
Based on decennial census population counts, congressional district boundaries are redrawn (or recertified) every 10 years. There are 435 voting seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, each representing an average of about 761,000 people. The number of seats is fixed by law.
Maryland has eight congressional districts, each with approximately 772,000 people, more than the national average. Each state is responsible for drawing up the boundaries of congressional districts (apart from seven states with a single at-large representative). Within each state, districts must be “as equal in population to all other congressional districts in a state as practicable,” according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The number of House seats has not changed since 1911, but states can gain or lose districts based on population changes as determined by the census. Because the U.S. population has increased but the number of districts is still 435, a House member now represents more constituents.
Although Maryland’s First Congressional District has been variously configured from 1789 to the present, since 1902 it has included all nine Eastern Shore counties. Whole counties or portions of counties have been added or removed, according to expediency and politics. Neither federal nor Maryland law requires that congressional districts be contiguous, and the First District has jumped over the Chesapeake Bay to include counties on the western shore in several recent redistrictings. More recently, the district has snaked westward, north of the Bay, once as far as Carroll County.
For redistricting in 2022, several maps were proposed. One would have had the First District include parts of Anne Arundel County. But the map that was adopted instead (see main photo above) includes all of Harford County and the eastern part of Baltimore County.
Of the 34 representatives from the First District since 1863, 22 have been Democrats and 12 have been Republicans. Before that, affiliations included Anti-Administration, Pro-Administration, Federalist, Anti-Jacksonian, Whig, and Unionist. John W. Crisfield, from Princess Anne, was the lone Unionist, and was elected in 1861 and served only one term.
The county of residence for each representative elected since 1863 is shown below. All were from the Eastern Shore except Roy Dyson, from Calvert County.
Since Rogers C.B. Morton was elected in 1963, Republicans have dominated. Morton was followed by William O. Mills, who served one term; next came Robert E. Bauman, who served four terms. Wayne T. Gilchrest, at that time a Republican, served from 1991 until 2009 (he has subsequently switched to the Democrats, dismayed by the extremism of his former party).
Democrat Frank M. Kratovil, Jr., served one term from 2009-2011.
Prior to Andrew P. Harris, all the Republicans were of the moderate and traditional variety. Elected in 2011, Harris has proved to be a right-wing Trump supporter. He rarely seems to vote in the interest of his First District constituents, particularly on bills related to the environment and the Chesapeake Bay. While he now lives in Dorchester County, for most of his term, he resided in the Baltimore area.
A native of Wicomico County, George Shivers holds a doctorate from the University of Maryland and taught in the Foreign Language Dept. of Washington College for 38 years before retiring in 2007. He is also very interested in the history and culture of the Eastern Shore, African American history in particular.
Common Sense for the Eastern Shore
