page_title: Maryland General Assembly
section_title: Legislative districts
hierarchical_section_title: Maryland General Assembly / Legislative districts
caption_attribution_description: English: Party Composition of Maryland State Senate Districts
context_page_description: The Maryland General Assembly is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Maryland that convenes within the State House in Annapolis. It is a bicameral body: the upper chamber, the Maryland State Senate, has 47 representatives and the lower chamber, the Maryland House of Delegates, has 141 representatives. Members of both houses serve four-year terms. Each house elects its own officers, judges the qualifications and election of its own members, establishes rules for the conduct of its business, and may punish or expel its own members.
  The General Assembly meets each year for 90 days to act on more than 2,300 bills including the state's annual budget, which it must pass before adjourning sine die. The General Assembly's 438th session convened on January 10, 2018.
context_section_description: The current pattern for distribution of seats began with the legislative apportionment plan of 1972 and has been revised every ten years thereafter according to the results of the decennial U.S. Census. A Constitutional amendment, the plan created 47 legislative districts, many of which cross county boundaries to delineate districts relatively equal in population. Each legislative district elects one senator and three delegates. In most districts, the three delegates are elected at large from the whole district via block voting. However, in some more sparsely populated areas of the state, the districts are divided into subdistricts for the election of delegates: either into three one-delegate subdistricts or one two-delegate subdistrict and one one-delegate subdistrict.
caption: Districts and party composition of the Maryland Senate
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