Politics

Students from private schools around Maryland protested at the State House Thursday to call on Gov. Wes Moore and state lawmakers not to cut funding to a tuition program. The BOOST program, Broadening Options & Opportunities for Students Today, started under then-Gov. Larry Hogan’s administration, gives students from low-income families scholarships to attend private an religious schools.

For the third time in a decade, Maryland lawmakers are debating and likely to pass an increase to the state’s minimum wage. What’s still undecided, though, is whether they’ll set themselves up to have the same conversation again in a few years. Democratic lawmakers are coalescing around part of a proposal from Democratic Gov. Wes Moore that would boost the minimum wage to $15 in October — ahead of a scheduled increase to that rate in 2025.

The fallout over a controversial vote on a maintenance agreement for Baltimore’s conduit system continued Wednesday as the city’s top officials traded barbs face-to-face and conversations began anew about restructuring the city’s spending board. The Board of Estimates officially took no action Wednesday on the deal, which calls for Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. to spend $134 million on improvements to the system over the next four years, as well pay a $1.5 million annual occupancy fee. However, tensions flared as officials aired anew their objections to how the agreement was developed and initially approved.

Facing a changing national landscape for abortion care access, state senators considered legislation Wednesday that would help protect reproductive health care providers, patients and their health data. The bill, sponsored in the Senate by Democrat Shelly Hettleman of Baltimore County and in the House by Democrat Sandy Rosenberg of Baltimore, would prohibit records about reproductive health care, including abortion, from crossing state lines via digital health information exchanges.

With an eye on the 2024 elections, President Joe Biden repeatedly urged U.S. House Democrats meeting Wednesday evening in Baltimore to help the party claim credit for various initiatives, including a massive infrastructure package and gun safety measures. “Folks are going to understand what you’ve done. We’re going to make sure of it,” he said. “There’s so much more to do, though,” said the Democratic president, citing immigration reform and his push to restore an expanded child tax credit, among other issues.

Two General Assembly bills aim to abolish the board of Maryland 529, the beleaguered state higher education savings agency, and move the organization under the auspices of the state treasurer by June, a change State Treasurer Dereck Davis supports. Del. Cathi Forbes, a Baltimore County Democrat, has introduced the House version of the legislation and Sen. Joanne Benson, a Prince George’s County Democrat, is the chief sponsor of an identical bill in her chamber.

Maryland Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller urged lawmakers Wednesday to approve an extension and expansion of tax credits for low-income residents that have helped them during the coronavirus pandemic but are set to end. The proposal is a priority for Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat who included $171 million in his $63.1 billion budget plan for the legislation. It would make permanent an expansion of the state’s earned income tax credit approved in 2021 for tax years through 2022. The measure also would expand the state’s child tax credit.