In response to the murder of Washington County Circuit Court Judge Andrew Wilkinson, the first bill the Maryland state Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee may consider next legislative session would grant more privacy to judges and their families. Wilkinson, a 52-year-old husband and father of two, was shot to death in his driveway Thursday night.

April McClain Delaney, an attorney with a telecommunications policy background who until last month was a top official of the U.S. Commerce Department, announced Wednesday she is running for the Democratic nomination in Maryland’s 6th Congressional District. The seat was held for six years by her husband, Democrat John Delaney, a multimillionaire businessman who won it following an upset primary victory in 2012.

Residents of the federally subsidized Wilbourn Estates apartment complex gathered Monday to ask the Annapolis City Council what it plans to do to help them as they await further information about when they will be able to move back into their homes. In late August and early September, Annapolis inspectors condemned at least four units in Wilbourn Estates and cited several others for code violations.

While the Montgomery County Council changed the name of the Policing Advisory Commission to the Community Advisory Commission on Public Safety on Tuesday, the body’s role will remain mostly the same. Bill 32-23, sponsored by councilmember Dawn Luedtke (D-Dist. 7), proposed amendments to how the commission functions, including the name change, in hopes of preventing confusion between the commission and the state-mandated Police Accountability Board (PAB).

 

Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski Jr. expressed frustration that state officials are giving short shrift to his jurisdiction for transportation projects, but said he “remained optimistic” about the county’s renewed relationships with Maryland Department of Transportation officials. State and county officials met Monday at Towson University to discuss Baltimore County-specific projects in the draft version of the $21.2 billion Consolidated Transportation Program, the state’s capital transportation budget for fiscal years 2024 to 2029.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) stepped into the U.S. Senate race Monday to endorse Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks. Moore returned the favor after Alsobrooks endorsed him last year for governor when he opened a field office in Prince George’s, the majority Black jurisdiction with the largest number of registered Democrats in the state.

Maryland’s high-profile race to replace U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin got off to a quick start, with four Democrats almost immediately jumping in for the rare chance to win an open seat in Washington, D.C., next year. Cardin, a three-term senator who’s been involved in Maryland politics for nearly six decades, is not seeking reelection in 2024.

With two quarters of campaign finance reports in the books, it’s time to take stock of fundraising in the Congressional District 6 race. This series will explore where the candidates’ money is coming from as of 9/30/23. The data source of this series is the campaign finance information collected by the U.S. Federal Election Commission (FEC). The chart below shows total fundraising for each candidate from the FEC’s CD6 profile. Democrats appear in blue bars and Republicans appear in red ones.

While the Montgomery County Board of Elections voted Oct. 16 to approve the addition of mail-in ballot dropboxes at Montgomery College campuses for the 2024 presidential election, one member opposed the decision, citing college students’ political activity. “College campuses have historically been hotbeds of unrest,” Diane Nash Dillon, a Republican member of the body, said during the Oct. 16 board meeting. “Everybody knows the demographics or as in the political makeup of college campuses are heavily skewed in favor of one party … I’m categorically opposed to placing dropboxes on college campuses.”

Former Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby is headed to trial next week, and the judge overseeing the case agreed to limit some of the prosecution’s arguments at a pre-trial hearing Monday. But the defense didn’t get everything it was seeking, and other issues remain unsettled. Mosby was originally charged with perjury and making false statements on a mortgage application, with prosecutors alleging she lied about suffering an “adverse financial consequence” related to the COVID-19 pandemic in order to gain early access to retirement funds, then used that money to purchase vacation homes in Florida, and, in doing so, lied in related paperwork.