Politics

Harford County Executive Barry Glassman proposed legislation to let voters decide if future Harford County Council members will be limited to two consecutive terms. “I have been contacted by many constituents requesting that we place term limits for council members on the ballot in November 2022,” County Executive Glassman said. “In fact, I have always supported term limits and actually supported an effort many years ago when I served on the council as a way to include more citizens in public service.”

Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich Wednesday attributed his county’s best in the state COVID-19 vaccination metrics to consistent scientific-based messaging about the dangers posed by the virus. About 75% of Montgomery County residents are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC, and about 83% of the county’s residents have received at least one dose of the vaccine. Among Montgomery County’s vaccine-eligible population, more than 90% have been fully inoculated.

Following the first of two canvasses from three Annapolis primary elections completed Wednesday, two City Council incumbents extended their leads and a third race narrowed to within 13 votes, unofficial election results showed. Between the 297 in-person ballots counted after polls closed Tuesday and the first batch of 414 mailed ballots received by the Friday before Election Day, Rhonda Pindell-Charles now leads Keanuú Smith-Brown, 156 votes to 60 votes, in Ward 3 with about 46% of votes counted. Ross Arnett leads Kati George, 179 votes to 113 votes, with 40% of the vote counted.

Six Democratic gubernatorial candidates laid out their plans to tackle housing insecurity and protect tenants at a Tuesday night forum, coalescing around reforms like access to counsel in eviction cases and rent stabilization. Democratic gubernatorial candidates Comptroller Peter V.R. Franchot, former Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler, former Obama administration official Ashwani Jain, former U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr., former nonprofit CEO Wes Moore and former U.S. Secretary of Labor Tom Perez attended the Tuesday evening forum hosted by the Montgomery County Renters Alliance.

Attorney Robbie Leonard said he will run against Baltimore County’s incumbent State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger in next June’s Democratic primary, marking the first time Shellenberger has been challenged in a primary since he was first elected in 2006. Leonard, an attorney of 13 years who currently serves as secretary of the Maryland Democratic Party, sees a changing political tide in Baltimore County when it comes to criminal justice reform — one that accelerated in the wake of national protests last year after George Floyd, a Black man, was killed by Derek Chauvin, a white Minneapolis police officer. Chauvin was later convicted of second-degree murder.

Interested citizens can draw their own congressional and legislative maps to submit for consideration to Maryland’s two redistricting commissions. The commissions, one established by Gov. Larry Hogan and one run by the Legislature, are holding public meetings to develop maps based on the new 2020 census data. Earlier this month the Maryland Citizens Redistricting Commission — organized by Hogan — announced it was accepting submissions of maps from the public.