Commentary

“A republic, if you can keep it …” And we are trying, Mr. Franklin, we are trying. Our organizations and the rest of the members of For the People – Maryland, representing more than 100,000 citizens across the state, are working tirelessly to prohibit gerrymandering, stop voter suppression and make it more difficult for billionaires to buy our elections.

Every so often in Maryland, we hear distressing news of a major explosion in a residential neighborhood. These explosions, caused by unsafe gas lines, have become all too common, even as they take lives, destroy homes and disrupt communities. Last August, a gas explosion took a life and damaged three homes off Reisterstown Road in Northwest Baltimore. Four years before that, a gas explosion in a Silver Spring apartment complex killed seven people.

In a major victory for constitutional norms, the Supreme Court overturned a lawless and essentially authoritarian policy of the Trump administration, and progressives are furious. You read that right. Let’s catch up. On March 27, 2020, Congress passed the CARES Act, and Donald Trump signed it into law. One provision of the massive $2.2 trillion legislation imposed a temporary ban on evictions for renters in response to the economic hardships caused by the pandemic. The case for the moratorium at the time didn’t rest on public health, but on the fact that the country was heading into a lockdown. Asking people to pay rent when they were told they couldn’t go to work didn’t make a lot of sense.

Despite a sputtering start, vaccine distribution hit its stride this spring. By May, all Americans above the age of 12 were eligible to receive the vaccine, and by the Fourth of July, we were celebrating the return of recently foregone freedoms. Happy hour was no longer over Zoom, family gatherings were once again without FaceTime, date nights were back inside restaurants and ballgames were played with fans in the stands. Such springtime hope has wilted with the heat of summer.

Transportation issues are rarely about getting from here to there. Usually they involve money, race, labor unions, jobs, votes, and whose back porch will disappear in the bulldozer’s path. So saying, there are two sticks of dynamite in the newly invigorated push to revive Baltimore’s stranded Red Line project: (1) The party of the governor who’s elected next year; or (2) The costly and redundant tunnel section of the original plan.

The framework of the current $3.5 trillion federal budget reconciliation package recently released brings new hope for those of us ready for a new generation of policies to uplift our poorest communities out of poverty and turn the page to a new chapter focused on post-pandemic recovery. And as Congress attempts to pass a record infrastructure deal and a budget that works for everyone, I am very optimistic about this future. However, I am worried that one potential provision will only counteract much of the bill’s historic achievements.

Fall is almost here and that means Maryland school districts are sending out welcome messages, school supply lists, and new coronavirus safety protocols. As one of the states providing the least amount of live instruction last year, these protocols have appropriately prioritized keeping students in the classroom, with an acknowledgment that in-person education is far superior to remote instruction. However, absent from these plans is one key strategy that could help limit viral spread and the need for disruptive quarantines: utilization of rapid antigen tests.