Politics

Nearly two years later, U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin is still processing the surreal scenes he saw inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as a mob loyal to then-President Donald Trump forced its way in as lawmakers were finalizing the 2020 presidential election results. The Maryland Democrat watched as the Secret Service hustled the vice president out of the Senate, heard loud noises outside the chamber and was implored by police to “run as quickly as we can” with colleagues down two levels and through the Capitol tunnels to an undisclosed safe location.

The Prince George’s County Council held its annual gavel exchange session Tuesday to appoint new leadership, but this year came with a bit of a twist. Outgoing council chair Calvin Hawkins nominated councilmember Jolene Ivey to become the new chair. However, Ivey made a “substitute motion” and recommended Tom Dernoga instead.

Baltimore’s newly approved term limits for its mayor, comptroller and the City Council will not to be effective until 2024, but a member of council is already calling for their repeal. Councilman Ryan Dorsey introduced a bill Thursday proposing a charter amendment that would remove term limits from city law. The legislation would have to be passed by the council and agreed to by the mayor before it could be placed on the ballot for voters to consider in the 2024 election.

The possibility of having same-sex marriage rights ripped away has been weighing heavily on the mind of Myoshi Smith — and her clients. “This has definitely been a huge fear of mine,” said Smith, a pansexual relationship enhancement specialist based in Baltimore’s Pigtown community. “I work with 40% to 50% of my clients who consider themselves to be queer. There’s been a lot of raised anxiety and fear about their rights being taken away.” Same-sex couples and advocates in the Baltimore area felt a sense of relief Thursday when the U.S. House of Representatives voted 258 to 169 to pass legislation to protect both same-sex marriage and interracial marriage.

Baltimore’s backlogged payment system routinely leaves nonprofits waiting more than a year for their contracts to be approved, often leaving partners to perform important services well before they can begin billing the city, according to a report released Wednesday by the Abell Foundation. Of 115 federal housing grants administered by Baltimore City and analyzed in the report, only one was approved on or before the date that the organization was scheduled to begin services. These delays have often forced organizations to make cutbacks, dip into reserves or rely on lines of credit, requirements that disproportionately harm small organizations, according to the report.

Montgomery County planners have released the initial results of their Mapping Segregation Project, documenting evidence of past restrictive housing practices, mostly based on race, throughout the county’s southern portion, in hopes of better informing future land use policy. The research was funded in 2020 “to determine whether a persistent pattern of economic inequality and segregation exists,” since the days when such segregation was legally sanctioned, according to a planning staff report from the time. Staffers briefed the county’s Planning Board on their first phase of findings as part of the board’s meeting last Thursday.

Marylanders voted last month to allow the legalization of cannabis for recreational use, making the state the 22nd jurisdiction and the last state in the DMV area to do so. The legislation, which goes into full effect on July 1, 2023, allows the possession and sale of cannabis products up to one ounce for anyone 21 or older, and will mean the expungement of cannabis-related records for thousands of people.