Politics

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) will take his first international trip as governor this week, leaving for London for unspecified trade meetings and to give a keynote speech at forum for global philanthropists, his office said Tuesday. Moore’s speech to the Skoll World Forum in Oxford will be Thursday evening, followed by meetings with companies Friday, his staff said.

The Maryland Attorney General’s Office is set to receive broad new powers, including the authority to prosecute police-involved deaths, under a set of bills that passed out of the General Assembly this session. The office will also be able to investigate and sue over civil rights violations in housing, employment, public accommodations and leasing of commercial property, which was another legislative priority for Attorney General Anthony Brown when he took over the office this year.

Governor Wes Moore last week announced that Maryland is awarding nearly $92 million to expand high-speed internet access to an estimated 14,500 households and businesses across the state through Connect Maryland, an initiative to close the digital divide through the Office of Statewide Broadband. The Connect Maryland Network Infrastructure Grant Program made 35 awards to Internet Service Providers and local jurisdictions to construct new broadband networks to service unserved households.

Maryland lawmakers showed up to their final official day of work on Monday, a marathon of last-minute lawmaking as a midnight deadline to adjourn approached. The last day of the 90-day Maryland General Assembly session is generally a chaotic affair, as lawmakers go in and out of sessions in their chambers, punctuated by quick and impromptu committee voting sessions. Lobbyists and advocates make last-minute pushes for bills that still hang in the balance.

The General Assembly wrapped up its session Monday with a marathon of lawmaking, passing hundreds of bills mostly with ease, though there were spurts of tension right at the midnight deadline, as well as earlier in the day, around proposed laws to control gun ownership and grapple with the impending legalization of recreational cannabis. Entering the final day, the Democratic supermajorities in Annapolis had already approved landmark bills on topics like abortion access and civil remedies for victims of child sexual abuse.

After a 90-day session largely devoted to Democratic priorities, the Maryland House of Delegates devolved into a Republican-led shouting match with just six minutes before the General Assembly adjourned for the year. With a fresh term, an ally in Democratic Gov. Wes Moore and new seats gained by the party following the 2022 general election, the members of the party in control of the General Assembly had focused their eyes on their priorities this session.

For farmers like Keith Ohlinger, composting has been a way of life on his 22-acre property, and now a bill awaiting Gov. Wes Moore’s signature aims to expand a zero-waste future. As the owner and operator of Howard County’s Porch View Farm LLC, reusing nearly all waste he and his family creates for the good of his tree and livestock farm has centered on compost created through a process of balancing nitrogen-rich, or “green” items, like some food scraps and used tea bags, and carbon rich, or “brown” items, like dry leaves and plants along with paper products.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore began the year as a brand-new governor with no elected political experience. He’s walking away from his first General Assembly session with most of his priorities passed in some form or another, and with almost all of his appointees confirmed. Ahead of a key procedural deadline last month, the Democratic governor told reporters that it was an “extraordinary moment” because all of his bills were alive in some form.

Legislators struck a deal Saturday morning to create two more slots on the Maryland Stadium Authority board — a new seat for Prince George’s County and another pick for the governor — breaking a quiet deadlock that threatened a Senate floor fight Monday. Under a plan worked out among lawmakers and administration and county officials, a bill now being held in the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee would be amended first thing Monday — the final day of the 90-day legislative session — to increase the size of the board so that Prince George’s County would have a vote.