MD Supreme Court explains decision to approve Harborplace ballot question

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The Maryland Supreme Court wrapped up a chapter in the Harborplace saga this week, issuing an opinion explaining why it approved Question F and allowed Baltimoreans’ votes on the question to count.

In a unanimous Jan. 28 opinion authored by Justice Brynja Booth, the court ruled that the group opposing the Harborplace redevelopment waited too long to sue, then sued the wrong party.

It further ruled that the election law in question was meant to address small administrative issues and that the Maryland State Board of Elections does not have the authority to interpret the substance of ballot questions approved by local legislatures.

A group led by former Baltimore City Councilman Anthony Ambridge, and represented by Thiru Vignarajah, sued the Maryland State Board of Elections in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court after it certified Question F in early September. Judge Cathleen Vitale sided with them, saying the amendment was unreadable and not proper charter material. Because ballots were already being printed, she directed the Baltimore City Board of Elections not to count the votes on Question F.

The Supreme Court reversed Vitale’s ruling. It ruled that if Ambridge’s group wanted to challenge the substance of the amendment, it should have sued the city, not SBE, months earlier, when the council approved the charter-amendment bill. The question passed in November with about 60% of the vote.

“By waiting until after the State Board certified the ballot to assert claims related to Question F, Mr. Ambridge interjected chaos and uncertainty into the election process in Baltimore City,” Booth wrote.

“Clearly, in a case involving judicial review of a ballot question arising by a legislative enactment in Baltimore City and drafted by the City Department of Law, the City should have been a party to and participated in the proceeding.”

Bramble’s group and Baltimore City joined SBE as defendants on appeal.

The court’s October ruling was a win for Baltimore native P. David Bramble, owner of MCB Real Estate, who intends to redevelop Harborplace, as well has his elected allies, Mayor Brandon Scott and Gov. Wes Moore.

MCB Real Estate acquired the property in 2022 and is planning to build offices, retail, up to 900 apartments and off-street parking, with hopes of revitalizing downtown as Harborplace did a generation ago.

To move forward, the project would still require hundreds of millions of as-yet unappropriated dollars from the state and federal governments, but the Supreme Court’s decision resolved a legal barrier. In order to redevelop Harborplace, Baltimore needed to amend the city charter, which protects most of the area as a public park, rather than amending the zoning code.

Critics say the Inner Harbor park is a “crown jewel” that should be protected from private development and question campaign donations to Scott and Moore by Bramble and his associates.

Ambridge sued under a state election law that allows voters to challenge the “content and arrangement (of a ballot question), or to correct any administrative error.” Booth wrote that Ambridge’s interpretation of the law was “expansive,” and misunderstood SBE’s powers.

If state election law allowed voters to challenge the substance of charter amendments after the state certified ballots, Booth wrote, they would get “two bites at the apple.”

“The State Board has no duties or responsibilities related to the certification of the substance of the charter amendment ballot question as being permitted by law, nor does it have any responsibility for drafting the ballot language,” the opinion states.

But the court walked back part of the October order where it ruled that Question F was “not improper charter material.” It decided to forgo a ruling on the substance of the question.

“With the benefit of additional reflection and in light of the doctrine of constitutional avoidance, we deem it unnecessary to reach this issue and excise that holding from our consideration of that matter,” Booth wrote.