Sen. Barbara Mikulski’s announcement that she will not seek a sixth term in 2016 has several current Maryland congressmen (and others) considering a run for the open seat, with one already announcing his candidacy. Those developments, in turn, have state-level politicians eyeing the potentially soon-to-be-open congressional seats, and lower-level politicians eyeing the state-level seats. It’s all one big game of political musical chairs.

That, in turn, may give Gov. Larry Hogan and state lawmakers an opportunity to right a very nasty political wrong and fix Maryland’s atrocious and embarrassing 2011 congressional redistricting. That redistricting is highlighted by a 3^rd Congressional District dubbed “the most gerrymandered in the nation” by the New Republic and a “crazy quilt” by the Washington Post’s editorial board. (The 2^nd, 4^th, and 7^th Districts are hardly models of fair and rational apportionment, either.)

How did such a travesty of representative government get foisted on Marylanders? The reason lies not in the 3^rd District (or 2^nd, 4^th, or 7^th), but in the old 6^th District.

The 6th was comprised of western and most of northern Maryland. A highly rural district, it was Republican territory, similar to Maryland’s other rural district, the 1^st (mainly comprised of the Eastern Shore). That contrasted with Maryland’s six ardently Democratic congressional districts along the I-95 corridor, including Baltimore City and suburbs and the luxe suburbs of Washington, D.C.

The 6:2 Democrat/Republic congressional delegation split seemed fitting for Maryland, where (currently) 55% of registered voters are Democrats, 26% are Republicans, and the rest are unaffiliated or third-party members.

But 6:2 wasn’t satisfying to then-governor Martin O’Malley, a Democrat. By creatively redrawing the 6^th District to remove some northern counties and add in a portion of heavily populated, wealthy, and uber-Democratic Montgomery County, O’Malley flipped the district Democrat and disenfranchised most of the former district’s voters. The rest of the inventive Maryland congressional district map was contrived to accommodate the redrawn 6^th while protecting specific Democratic politicians in other districts.

O’Malley’s redistricting has left the majority of voters in western and northern Maryland feeling resentful—and who can blame them? Disenfranchisement is doubly offensive to representative government because it violates the fundamental principles of elected representation and it engenders civil discord. O’Malley judged those harms to be worthwhile in return for gaining his party a measly House seat—even though one seat is practically irrelevant in contemporary congressional decision-making.

Congressional districts typically are redrawn every 10 years as part of congressional reapportionment following the decennial census. But states have redistricted at other times, to accommodate population shifts. I am not a legal scholar and cannot speak with authority on whether Maryland can now redraw its congressional districts. But given the likelihood that the Mikulski musical chairs will produce an unusually low number of incumbents, now seems like an ideal time to try.

And a more representative congressional map should meet with the approval of most Marylanders. Even if one district flips back to Republican, if voters are properly divided between districts, the political views of those districts’ voters should better match their congressmen’s. Maryland’s congressional delegation would be more representative of its people, and the people will be more satisfied with their representatives.