Politics

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.

Maryland leaders are making a big commitment to offshore windmills in an effort to reach state goals increasing the use of renewable energy sources and making the state a leader in the wind energy industry. Both Gov. Wes Moore and the General Assembly are pushing those efforts, with Moore reaffirming the state’s effort to reach 100% of energy supplied by renewable sources by 2035 last month at the International Offshore Wind Partnering Forum.

Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown called a Texas court’s decision Friday to suspend the FDA’s longtime approval of an abortion medication called mifepristone “an attack on reproductive freedom.” Around the same time, another federal judge in Washington state ordered U.S. authorities not to make any changes that would restrict access to the drug in at least 17 states where Democrats sued in an effort to protect availability.