Maryland
Mid-Atlantic US state; 7-1 Democratic delegation, first jurisdiction (Montgomery County) to enact a DC moratorium.
Maryland's own Senate president blocked his party's mid-decade congressional map on 14 April 2026, leaving the state's 7-1 Democratic delegation unchanged into November.
Last refreshed: 4 August 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
Why did Montgomery County become Maryland's first data-centre moratorium?
Timeline for Maryland
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Data Centres: Boom and BacklashBackground
Maryland is a Mid-Atlantic state bordering the District of Columbia, with a congressional delegation of seven Democrats and one Republican. Its proximity to Washington gives it an unusually large federal workforce and a political culture closely bound to national government.
The state sits within the PJM Interconnection grid region, and one of its counties, Montgomery, has been among the first jurisdictions in the country to move on data-centre regulation, advancing a moratorium and a capacity cap on new campuses. That gives Maryland an early, though still local rather than statewide, position in the debate over how FAR county government can constrain data-centre load growth on a regional grid.
In national redistricting politics Maryland occupies an awkward spot for its own party: its congressional map is already among the most Democratic-favourable in the country, leaving little room to gain further seats even where the party holds every lever of state government.
The state blocked its own party's map
Maryland's House passed an all-8-districts-Democratic congressional map 99-37 on 2 February 2026, but Senate President Bill Ferguson, a Democrat, refused to schedule a floor vote . Judicial Watch had argued the map replicated a Maryland gerrymander federal courts had already struck down, and Republican Representative Andy Harris threatened further legal challenges.
The bill died in committee on 14 April when the session closed without a vote . Unlike Virginia and Colorado, where courts closed the Democratic redistricting route, Maryland's map was blocked from inside its own party, and the state kept its one Republican seat intact for November despite Democrats controlling every other lever of state government.