NewsMax · September 2, 2026
On August 26, 2026, the Circuit Court for Anne Arrundel County, Maryland, ruled in Michael Howell, et al. v. Maryland State Board of Elections, et al., No. 26-1986, that the recently rushed-through Maryland ballot question, aka HB2100 or Ballot Question 3, that would allow gerrymandering out the sole remaining Maryland Republican Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Andy Harris, may not be included on the Nov. 3, 2026, Maryland ballot, "Because the legislature did not follow the very laws it enacted, the court finds the enactment of HB2100 to be legally deficient."
The court ruled that, even if the Maryland legislature is "exempted from following the laws they impose on all other Marylanders, the court finds that the ballot question itself to be deficient" because, as posted, the court found that the use of "the word 'clarifies' is misleading."
The court found further that the ballot question is "intentionally misleading, and this should disqualify the ballot question as currently written."
Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, promptly ordered an appeal to the Maryland Supreme Court.
In the meantime, on Aug. 28, 2026, the Circuit Court for Dorchester County separately ruled "that the State Board of Elections is ENJOINED from including statewide ballot Question 3 on the November 3, 2026, ballot."
The roots of procedural due process in Maryland extend across the Atlantic to the Magna Carta of 1215, which established the general principle that the king is subject to "the law of the land."
According to the Maryland Supreme Court in Owens v. State, 924 A.2d 1072, 399 Md. 388 (Md. App. 2007), among other restrictions in Magna Carta, was that, "No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned or desseised or outlawed or exiled or in any way ruined, nor will we go or send against him, except by the lawful (judgment) of his peers or by the law of the land." 399 Md. at 409 n. 26.
In August 1776, a committee of seven Marylanders, including three of the four Maryland signers of the July 4, 1776, Declaration of Independence -- Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Samuel Chase, and William Paca -- incorporated Magna Carta into what is now Article 24 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights: "no man ought to be taken or imprisoned or disseized of his freehold, liberties or privileges, or outlawed, or exiled, or, in any manner, destroyed, or deprived of his life, liberty or property, but by the judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land."
So, what are the enduring due process principles behind the words, "the law of the land"?
550 years after Magna Carta, Sir William Blackstone explained in his Commentaries on the Laws of England, that all man-made law, as opposed to divine and natural law, must be both prescribed and promulgated by the lawmaker "in the most public and perspicuous manner available, not like Caligula, who (according to Dio Cassius) wrote his laws in a very small character, and hung them up upon high pillars, the more effectually to ensnare the people."
Our July 4, 1776, Declaration of Independence calls out these abuses by the then King of England, each of which relates to the recent attempt to rush through HB2100:
"He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures"; "He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving is Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation"; "For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments."
In the context of a ballot initiative due process challenge, the Maryland Supreme Court explained in: Anne Arundel County v. McDonough, 354 A.2d 788, 277 Md. 271, 1976 Md.
The essence of due process is notice.
The due process rights of the Complainants are not protected where there is no publication or other reasonable notice provision with respect to a referendum, so that reasonably well-informed voters may be assured.
The procedural requirements of a law providing a referendum are mandatory where the attack upon it is made before an election, Dutton v. Tawes, 225 Md. 484 (171 A.2d 688) (1961). . . .
Apropos Blackstone's admonition about unreadable laws, Federalist Papers #62, published in 1788 and attributed to either James Madison or Alexander Hamilton, explains, "It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood."
Maryland Ballot Question 3 is intentionally misleading and "cannot be understood." The Maryland Supreme Court should affirm the two lower court rulings that it cannot be on the Nov. 3, 2026, ballot.
(A related article may be found here.)
Joseph E. Schmitz served as inspector general of the Department of Defense from 2002-2005. During the 2016 presidential campaign, he served as foreign policy and national security advisor to candidate Donald J. Trump. Mr. Schmitz graduated with distinction from the U.S. Naval Academy, and earned his J.D. degree from Stanford Law School. He's author of, "The Inspector General Handbook: Fraud, Waste, Abuse, and Other Constitutional 'Enemies, Foreign and Domestic.'"(2013). Read more Joseph E. Schmitz insider articles -- Click Here Now.