Politics

Despite renewed calls for an assault weapons ban after a string of mass shootings, prospects for passage of any new gun safety legislation in a divided Congress are poor. “There’s very little chance of any movement in the House. I don’t want to say never, because you never say never,” Tanya Schardt, senior counsel and director of state and federal policy at the Brady Campaign, told Capital News Service.

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined the request of former Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Cox to review a judge’s decision allowing Maryland to count mail-in ballots before Election Day in November. In a petition, Cox’s attorney argued a Montgomery County circuit judge incorrectly granted a State Board of Elections request in September to permit ballot counting as early as Oct. 1 to accommodate an expected deluge of mail-in ballots.

Months after parents first began agitating for legislative action, a Maryland State Senate committee is considering a work group to address ongoing problems with a state education financing agency and held a hearing to discuss related legislation, one day after the state treasurer said he would support efforts to bring the agency under the control of his office. Parents with accounts in the Maryland Prepaid College Trust have accused its parent agency, Maryland 529, of withholding access to interest earnings and reneging on a contract clause entitling them to a 6% compounded monthly interest rate for accounts opened before Nov. 1, 2021.

As Democratic members of Maryland’s General Assembly scramble to implement a new concealed carry gun policy for the state, House lawmakers heard testimony Wednesday on a bill to tighten restrictions on who can carry a firearm in public. House Judiciary Committee Chair Luke Clippinger’s bill seeks to limit who may receive a permit to wear and carry a gun. It’s in response to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June in a case from another state that effectively also struck down Maryland’s policy as unconstitutional. The Maryland law required people to show a good reason to get a license to wear a concealed firearm.

Republican lawmakers in Annapolis are pushing back against Gov. Wes Moore’s proposed state budget that they said eliminates a key education program. The Joint Republican Caucus gathered in Annapolis on Wednesday to speak out against Moore’s proposal to cut 20% to the BOOST program. The program provides scholarships to low-income students who want to leave failing schools and attend private schools.

The leader of the state Republican Party said she will offer up a new nomination to fill a spot on the Maryland State Board of Elections but criticized Gov. Wes Moore (D) for “sneaky, hyper-partisan attacks.” The response comes after Moore informed Republican Chair Nicole Beus Harris that he was rejecting the party’s nominee for the state board because of concerns about William Newton’s published criticisms of the state elections process and an embezzlement conviction. Harris, in a statement issued late Wednesday defended Newton as a “qualified nominee” while not addressing issues concerning the embezzlement charge.

Appearing in his now-signature bandanna and in high spirits, Rep. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Md.) told supporters in a video message Wednesday that he was midway through his cancer chemotherapy treatment. “I’ve done three of six rounds of chemotherapy, and you guys have completely bolstered my courage and my confidence,” he told members of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee in what he called a “video valentine,” after reading thousands of messages the group’s members sent him recently.

The group Courtwatch PG was founded with the aim of providing more transparency to the one step of the criminal justice system that’s public in name, but less public in practice. For the most part, judicial proceedings are open to the public, but you have to be willing and available to travel to courthouses to see what happens. The pandemic changed that, with virtual hearings that let anyone with a Zoom or Webex account see what was going on. With the evolution of the pandemic, accessibility is changing again. For the second year in a row, Courtwatch PG is helping to lead a state effort to open it up again.