Prince George's County considers ending at-large council seats

Prince George’s County is moving toward a fight that could reshape who gets heard at the County Council and who gets left out. A committee advanced legislation Tuesday that would ask voters whether to keep the county’s two at-large council seats or scrap them in favor of a district-only system, a change that would not take effect until 2030 even if approved.

The proposal put District 1 Councilmember Thomas Dernoga at the center of a debate over power, money and political reach. Dernoga said complaints about at-large seats had circulated for years among residents active in community affairs, and argued that countywide contests can help candidates bypass term limits and lean on deep-pocketed donors with broad fundraising networks. He also said the cost of running countywide elections had climbed, with early estimates near $1 million a year rising to almost $2 million.

Jolene Ivey, one of the county’s current at-large members, pushed back hard. She said the proposal made at-large councilmembers feel singled out and defended the seats as an extra point of access for residents who cannot get help from their district councilmember. In her view, every county resident effectively has three councilmembers to call, a structure she said matters in a county as large and varied as Prince George’s.

That scale is central to the argument on both sides. Prince George’s has operated under a home rule charter since 1970, spans 483 square miles, and had an estimated population of 947,430 in 2023. County materials say it includes 27 municipalities and unincorporated areas, and stretches across urban, suburban and rural communities. It also sits beside major institutions and employers, including Joint Base Andrews, NASA Goddard, the Food and Drug Administration, NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Prediction, the USDA Beltsville Agricultural Research Center and the University of Maryland, College Park.

If at-large seats disappeared, district councilmembers would gain more exclusive control over how neighborhood priorities translate into county policy, budget fights and development decisions. Supporters of the current setup say countywide representatives can bridge that gap, giving residents outside the political center an additional route to county government. Opponents say the seats concentrate influence in expensive countywide races that can drown out smaller campaigns rooted in one district.

The issue is not new. In 2016, voters were asked to approve Question D, a charter referendum that would have kept nine district members and two at-large members while adding term-limit rules for movement between district and at-large service. The council still has 11 members today, with nine elected by district and two at-large, each serving four-year terms.

The stakes have sharpened as council vacancies have become flash points. In December 2025, the council appointed Wala Blegay to the at-large seat vacated by Calvin Hawkins, who was first elected in 2018 and reelected in 2022. That appointment triggered a separate vacancy-filling process in District 6, and residents sued in January 2026 over the council’s handling of the at-large vacancy system. The county Board of Elections had already estimated in July 2024 that a special election for a vacant at-large seat could cost at least $1.3 million in operational costs alone and require roughly 600,000 ballots mailed countywide.

If the measure reaches the ballot, the wording itself could shape the outcome. For Prince George’s, the fight is no longer just about procedure. It is about who gets a seat at the table when county power, spending and representation are on the line.