Politics

Eleven members of Virginia’s congressional delegation officially called for an investigation into the selection process for the new FBI Headquarters. In a letter, they called on the General Services Administration’s Acting Inspector General Robert Erickson to launch the probe. “There is overwhelming evidence suggesting that the General Services Administration (GSA) administered a site selection process fouled by political considerations and alleged impropriety — one that was repeatedly curated to arrive at a predetermined outcome,” the lawmakers said in the letter.

Hundreds of Baltimore residents lined up to secure a steering wheel lock Wednesday. Kia and Hyundai owners picked up the free anti-theft locks at a giveaway in south Baltimore. “People tried to take my car,” resident Angel Castillo said. City leaders were there, including Mayor Brandon Scott and Commissioner Richard Worley. They had 500 locks ready to hand out to drivers in need.

The U.S. House took a broadly bipartisan vote Tuesday to fund the government into the new year, though the measure must pass the Senate by the end of the week if Congress is going to avoid a partial government shutdown. The 336-95 House vote was the first major legislative test for Speaker Mike Johnson, the Louisiana Republican who took on the role after the former speaker was ousted after passing a similar bipartisan short-term funding bill in late September.

At a long-anticipated hearing Tuesday evening, representatives from Mayor Brandon Scott’s administration urged members of the Baltimore City Council to pump the brakes on a package of bills designed to increase the city’s supply of affordable housing units. The administration, wary of the two bills’ possible cost to the city and the ways they could detract from other ongoing housing initiatives already underway, asked for more time to study the proposals and find middle ground.

Senate and House Republicans vowed Tuesday to redress what House Minority Leader Jason Buckel, R-Allegany, called Maryland’s “soft on crime policies” with a 2024 public safety agenda that would intensify punishment for adults accused of gun-related and violent crimes and reverse reforms to the youth legal system passed by the General Assembly in 2022. “The crime we’re seeing in our communities is not anecdotal, nor media manufactured,” said Senate Minority Leader Stephen Hershey, R-Kent, Queen Anne’s, Cecil and Caroline.

Members of a U.S. House committee on Tuesday grilled the head of the General Services Administration over the agency’s recent decision to place the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s new headquarters in Maryland instead of Virginia. “The process — or lack thereof — raises many questions that need to be answered,” the chair of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, James Comer of Kentucky, said in his opening remarks.