Commentary

At End Citizens United, our mission is simple. We want to protect the right to vote and get big money out of politics. That’s why we’ve been at the forefront this Congress working with allies to pass the For the People Act, a landmark anti-corruption bill that would protect the freedom to vote, end partisan gerrymandering, put in place ironclad ethics laws and end dark money so that billionaires can’t buy elections.

Common Ownership Communities (COCs) refer to condominium associations and homeowner associations. The Department of Legislative Services estimates that approximately 1 million Marylanders live in nearly 7,000 such organizations. Maryland’s COCs differ by size, resources and services provided. And their members differ by income, race, age and just about every other relevant demographic. The issues they face also vary widely across the state by region, spanning areas including Deep Creek in Western Maryland, Baltimore City, Charles County, the D.C. suburbs and Ocean City.

In 1988, at the height of the AIDS pandemic, playwright Larry Kramer exposed the Centers for Disease Control for slow-walking AIDS therapies. In a scathing open letter published in the Village Voice to Dr. Anthony Fauci — who was then, as now, spearheading public health policy — Kramer declared that after three years of effort, Dr. Fauci and the CDC “have established only a system of waste, chaos, and uselessness” and that “there are more AIDS victims dead because you didn’t test drugs on them than because you did.”

Throughout the pandemic, housing providers have held a vital stake in keeping residents housed, whether it was through payment plans, late fee waivers or other prevention efforts. Housing providers have also spent countless hours and human resource costs facilitating access to rental assistance. And, at the same time that federal rental assistance wound its way through government processes, Maryland’s housing providers worked with United Way of Central Maryland to recruit housing providers for the Strategic Targeted Eviction Prevention (STEP) Pilot Program, which quickly provided residents with rental assistance through a unique model that allows housing providers to apply for bulk rental assistance that will benefit all of their eligible residents.

Would you rather your kids be bitten by a mosquito or be exposed to cancer-causing chemicals in your backyard? This mosquito season, the Maryland Department of Agriculture is replacing its previously used truck-based pesticide, Permanone 30-30, with two similar pesticides after our organizations found alarming levels of the toxic “forever chemical” per- and polyfluoralkyl substances — PFAS — in a sample of Permanone 30-30.

The devil is in the details. That’s a common expression often used in legislative bodies. Legislation is complicated. Advocates and opponents can make all kinds of claims about what a proposal does or does not do, often without fear of contradiction. Even some lawmakers can’t be bothered with the actual reading of bills that go on for dozens of pages in complex, often arcane, legal language.