ANNAPOLIS, MD – Maryland’s third congressional district was rattled by scandal this past
week, as a slight gerrymandering mishap forced up-for- reelection Congressman John Sarbanes to
begin courting an unexpected constituency: 13,234 harbor seals. This marine voting bloc of
Phoca vitulina, or “the common seal,” had been accidentally tacked onto Maryland’s 3rd back in
2010 by cartographer Jim Stanley, yet his error – which added the entire lower half of the
Chesapeake Bay, much of the Choptank and Patuxent rivers, several protected colonies of
herons, 4 National Parks, and a hint of Delaware – was discovered just days ago.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. My hand slipped,” said Stanley.

Sarbanes’ reelection campaign has been careening from one scandal to the next since this came
to light: the candidate seems wildly unprepared for the seals’ questions on the Chesapeake’s
salmon, anchovy, and mollusk populations, whether or not portions of the Bay should be
renovated as massive Marine-Mammal-Only hot tubs, and the earned income tax credit.

“I’D SAY MEETING THE VOTERS IS MY FAVORITE PART OF THE CAMPAIGN,” yelled a disgruntled Congressman Sarbanes to the Heckler over the sound of his Jetski engine, the
shoreline just barely visible behind him, “ASKING THEM ABOUT THEIR FAVORITE
CRAGGY ROCKS TO SUNBATHE ON, COMPLEMENTING THEM ON THEIR BLUBBER.
I LOVE IT.”

At press time, Congressman Sarbanes denounced the radical, pie-in- the-sky environmentalist
demands of the increasingly militant seals, which had begun advocating for the controversial
position of ‘Not Having Their Home Polluted.’