A quiet rebellion against high-handed Democrat politicians pushing pet progressive policies is building in blue state Maryland, largely ignored by the national media so heavily concentrated in Washington, D.C., right next door.  Keep your eyes on referenda set to be on the November ballot.

Maryland's gerrymandered congressional district map says it all.  It has been called "the most gerrymandered in the nation."

The map stands as a metaphor, emblematic of the gross distortion of politics in a state run under one party rule.  Just as the map's newly aligned districts are twisted, elongated, and contorted to comport to one party's extreme wishes, so too is much of the signature legislation which has emanated from Annapolis over the last couple of years. 

The people of Maryland have finally said, "Enough is enough." 

The map is just exhibit A demonstrating our progressive politicians' legislative frenzy.

In a few weeks, Maryland voters will face three important referenda and a fourth initiative in the form of a ballot question.  Taken together, they are a massive indictment against Annapolis' governance.  Maryland's male-dominated White Democrat Power Structure has pitted itself against huge swaths of the state's population, prompting the birth of a growing coalition of diverse, disparate groups.

In 2011, there was widespread dislike for Governor Martin O'Malley's congressional redistricting plan.  Republicans were not the only ones who felt disenfranchised.  Blacks from Prince Georges and Montgomery Counties, Baltimore City, and beyond did as well.  While the governor sought to change the make-up of Maryland's Congressional Delegation from six Democrats and two Republicans to seven Democrats and one Republican, he diluted Maryland's African-American vote.  Based on the 2010 census, the districts should have been redrawn to add at least one more likely minority seat.  Instead, O'Malley chose to diffuse the black vote in order to protect white Democrat incumbents with the hope of gaining one more.

But wait, there's more -- much more.

Governor O'Malley and top Maryland Democrat leaders want to bring casino gambling to Maryland in a big way, and they want to locate it in mostly black Prince Georges County.  A large coalition of residents reject the idea and have concluded that their representatives who support the legislation are working against the best interests of their community.

Many share a well-founded fear that the introduction of casino gambling will bring about the unintended but very likely consequences of increased crime, drug and alcohol use among the county's minors, as well as a rise in prostitution.  The view is this: Democratic bigwigs want the increased revenue for state coffers, but they don't want gambling in their own backyards, so they're plunking it down in Prince Georges County.  Even the promise of a new hospital for the county in return for the casinos hasn't been 't enough to buy off the morals of a large contingent of the county's citizens.

Radamase Cabrera, of the Fannie Lou Hamer PAC, an organization which seeks to protect the interests of African-American voters in the state, describes Governor O'Malley, House of Delegates President Mike Miller, and those aligned with them as "Maryland's White Democratic Power Structure."  More and more, Maryland voerts see Maryland's White Democratic Power Structure in this way.

This view has been amplified by the governor's recent championing of same-sex marriage legislation, which narrowly passed into law earlier this year.  Maryland's African-American community led the opposition to this legislation while the State House was in session earlier this year, and once the governor signed same sex-marriage into law, they again stepped up to the plate to collect petition signatures calling for a referendum challenging the law.  The drive, sponsored by the Maryland Marriage Alliance, was wildly successful: while only 56,650 certified signatures were necessary to get the measure on the ballot, over 160,000 signatures were delivered to the Maryland secretary of state.  Interestingly, despite the long-ago passing of the submission deadline, petition signatures continue to arrive by mail at the Maryland Marriage Alliance, and they now total over 200,000.

Of the 109,313 signatures certified by the Board of Elections, only a little more than 53% of the signatories were Republican.  Nearly 37% were Democrats, and the remaining 10% were unaffiliated voters and a smattering of Libertarians and Green Party members.  Clearly, it's not just Republicans who object to this legislation: this is a common, mainstream concern.

Also on the ballot is Maryland's version of the DREAM Act which would grant in-state tuition to the children of illegals living in the state.

In 2011, when MDPetitions.com, the brainchild of Maryland freshman Delegate Neil Parrott, initiated a petition drive to derail the law newly enacted by Democrats in Annapolis, that drive also produced stunning results, generating more than twice the required number of signatures to get the measure on the November 2012 ballot.  A full thirty percent of the signatories were Democrats.  

In championing unpopular legislation, Governor O'Malley has used the people of Maryland as a stepping stone toward a hoped-for future national office.  He has attempted to establish his bona fides to impress the Democrat National Committee by muscling through du jour progressive legislation.  To do this, he purposefully and resolutely neglected his constituents -- demonstrating not his worthiness, but a high degree of hubris, a perhaps politically fatal attribute.

Maryland voters of all affiliations are tired of being ignored by those they have elected to serve them.  Grassroots activists of all stripes now find themselves working shoulder-to-shoulder against Maryland's Political Aristocracy, which has gladly trampled them underfoot.