An old idea resurrected
If the Eastern Shore of Maryland ever secedes, we in Slower Lower want in as well.
In the contentious fight over redistricting Maryland’s last GOP House member out of his district beginning in 2028, a monkey wrench was tossed into the works by Delegate Tom Hutchinson of Dorchester County, which is the county immediately west of the southwest corner of Delaware on the map above. The suggestion for a non-binding referendum to be held this fall in just the nine counties that make up Maryland’s Eastern Shore failed by a voice vote, but it reminds me that the idea isn’t new.
Back in 1998, the late State Senator Rich Colburn had a similar idea that he floated as a standalone bill, and his frustration was the same then as Hutchinson’s is now: to the rest of their state - and particularly its government - the Eastern Shore of Maryland truly is considered the “shithouse” of Governor William Donald Schaefer’s infamous utterance. Of course, liberals claim the region takes in much more government largesse than it gives back in taxes, but that can be said of several benighted areas of the state as well, like the ghetto in Baltimore City.
As I’ve said, it’s an old idea that has appealed to Eastern Shore denizens for years, perhaps going all the way back to the days when the only way to access the Shore was to cross on a ferry or drive all the way around over the Susquehanna River and through Cecil County at the northeast corner of the state. (It was easy from Delaware, though.) But while the Eastern Shore has its own unique culture as opposed to the rest of the state, perhaps coming closest to the those who live in the state’s panhandle sticking into West Virginia, it’s not as reliably Republican as some may be led to believe. Easton, Salisbury, and Kent County (Centreville/Chestertown) are Democrat enclaves within the region.
Back in 2017 I began a quadrennial thought exercise series that considered how a state of Delmarva (or Greater Delaware, if you prefer) would vote, as I compiled results from the nine counties of Maryland’s Eastern Shore, the three counties that make up Delaware, and the forgotten two counties that make up Virginia’s Eastern Shore (and less than 1% of its population. They’d never miss it.) As I did it in 2021 and 2025, I realized that such as state would be one of the most balanced in the country but is beginning to see a bluish tinge because Delaware is gaining population from states immediately to its north: New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania are slowly bleeding residents to us because they like the idea of no sales tax, cheaper housing, and being close to their grandkids that one would find in Delaware. (Problem is they vote the same way as they did when they left, which is why we’re getting bluer.)
But such a state would have its advantages. If drawn fairly, with a compact and contiguous split, the enlarged state would have a split Congressional delegation of one Republican and one Democrat, much as it is split now pending Maryland’s blatant attempt to gerrymander their First Congressional District. It could even keep the same Congress critters because I believe Maryland’s Andy Harris now lives in Cambridge on the Eastern Shore. It would also create an excuse for a larger state legislature, perhaps up to 75 members in the House that would create districts of about 20,000 people apiece. (A more appropriate Senate would expand to about 35 members.) It would also become more of an agricultural powerhouse nationally given its mostly rural character wouldn’t be diluted between three states.
On a different note, it would have the unique characteristic of most of its major access points being toll bridges which would be shared with another state, such as the bridge between Delaware and New Jersey is now. But that would also include the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, Bay Bridge-Tunnel in Virginia, and the Tydings Bridge carrying I-95 from Maryland.
Granted, a lot of history would be lost as well, since there are stories behind how the Delmarva Peninsula was initially split up. But this furor has resurrected yet another example of states wishing to break away from other states, such as the Greater Idaho movement, the North Maine break I wrote about last year, or the ideas about sawing up California, part of which would become the state of Jefferson.
It was said in our Declaration of Independence, “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” I can guaran-damn-tee that the folks on the Eastern Shore of Maryland (of which I was counted for almost 15 years before we moved here to Delaware) have a government that is “destructive of these ends.”
Perhaps the time has come to alter or abolish it.
In the meantime, though, you can Buy Me a Coffee, since I have a page there.
Just like “South Jersey”