Commentary

Currently, many selective colleges consider race when they make decisions about which students to admit. In several cases since 1978, the U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed that it is constitutional to do so to ensure diversity on campus. A ruling in favor of Students for Fair Admissions, the plaintiffs in the case, would require all colleges – both private and public – to no longer consider race when they make admissions decisions. Since nine states already have bans on affirmative action, it’s easy to know what will happen if affirmative action is outlawed. Studies of college enrollment in those states show that enrollment of Black, Hispanic and Native American undergraduate students will decline in the long term.

Dear Comptroller Franchot, We wish to thank you for the many years of public service you’ve provided to the state we love. Throughout your time as a delegate and comptroller, you’ve served Maryland and its taxpayers with honor. As you come to the end of your tenure, we urge you to reject or defer a decision on Governor Hogan’s proposal to widen and add toll lanes to Interstate 495 and I-270, including awarding 50-year contracts to Transurban and Tutor Perini Corp, until the new administration takes office in January. Our coalition of more than 30 organizations with members throughout Maryland believes the current proposal is financially risky and fundamentally flawed, exacerbating the negative public health impacts of vehicle pollution and slowing our state’s progress to reach net-zero greenhouse gas pollution by 2045.

Harford County citizens need to vote checks and balances into our local government in the 2022 election. Over the last several decades, the county has been run by Republicans who allow developers to do their own traffic [and] environmental studies and more, as if that would produce unbiased and accurate reports. Harford government hands out development permits like candy at Halloween and allows developers to rezone the county to suit their greedy agendas. If you don’t like crowded roads, redistricted schools, unsightly warehouses, overdevelopment, the elimination of forests and open space, dried-up streams, noise and air pollution, and more, do not vote for Misters Beulah, Giangiordano, Glassman (comptroller) and Vincenti. Otherwise, developers will continue to destroy Harford unobstructed.

What a difference four years makes. In 2018, former Del. John “Johnny O” Olszewski Jr. defeated state Sen. Jim Brochin by a mere 17 votes in what seemed at the time an upset victory in the Democratic primary for Baltimore County executive. He went on to win the job, defeating Al Redmer Jr., a popular former state insurance commissioner and onetime minority leader in the House of Delegates, and took office with the promise of more investment in public schools, improved transparency and ethics in county government, better public transit and a greater emphasis on equity and fairness.

Will there be an autumn or winter wave of covid? Right now, in the United States, daily cases and deaths are gradually declining off a still-high plateau. On the horizon, however, there are worrisome signals of a possible new wave. It is not too soon to grab protection with the bivalent booster. Europe is a telltale indicator. For the past few weeks, cases among people 65 years and older have been on the rise in 19 of the 26 countries reporting data to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control. Fifteen countries in the group reported rising hospitalizations. Germany, France and Italy have all seen growing caseloads, which often portend a similar jump in the United States a few weeks later.

Chuck Brown’s iconic “Bustin’ Loose” was blasting from the loudspeakers at the Newton White Mansion in Mitchellville as hundreds of cars snaked their way through the grassy parking lot. The event was vintage Prince George’s County — a historic site, but a modern vibe. Every year, the annual fall picnic for Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks (D) gets bigger and bigger. This one, three weeks ago, drew at least 1,000 people. And it was also vintage Alsobrooks: the 51-year-old county leader moved through the crowd quickly, hugging everybody, doing “The Electric Slide” with the old ladies, inviting every local elected official to stand with her as she addressed the crowd, and talking boldly about the future. She was talking, of course, about the future of Prince George’s County.

I would be hard-pressed to find another time in our shared history when facts and the science behind those facts have been more critical to public policy making. The bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 that became law this summer is remarkable in its scale of investment into public policy and, likewise, offers an ideal environment to demonstrate how successful data-driven decisions can be made. First, let’s be clear: public data exists for the public good. Data is a precious commodity that is agnostic to ideology, drives evidence-based conclusions, and is limitless in its application. Here at the Coleridge Initiative, we know that better data means better public policy.