Politics

The cannabis industry, education, and health care are among the issues the Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland will focus on during the 2023 General Assembly legislative session. During the group’s first press conference of the session Wednesday, Baltimore Sen. Jill P. Carter noted the importance of including the Black community when establishing the state’s recreational cannabis industry. The caucus wants to prioritize growing, possession, and dispensation licenses for those who have faced disproportionate harm from the past criminalization of cannabis.

Gov. Wes Moore’s proposed $63.1 billion spending plan includes no money for rental assistance, as evictions rise across Maryland and hundreds of millions in federal pandemic rental aid is about to run out. To help people keep their homes, Moore wants to accelerate the state’s timeline to boost the minimum wage to $15, and he earmarked money in his budget to provide legal help for those facing eviction. But without additional funding for rent assistance, Maryland could be facing an acute eviction crisis in the coming months, state agency and nonprofit leaders warned in a hearing at the State House this week.

When the state attorney general’s Independent Investigations Division wrapped up its investigation of last February’s police killing of Donnell Rochester, investigators handed the findings and legal analysis over to local Baltimore prosecutors. It was up to the local state’s attorney’s office to decide whether the officers should face charges. Earlier this month, State’s Attorney Ivan Bates issued his decision — the officers’ use of force was justified under the circumstances — despite the attorney general’s investigative unit’s finding that criminal charges could be possible, particularly because of the fatal fourth shot from an officer who ran into the path of Rochester’s moving vehicle.

Baltimore County Public Schools educator Lloyd Allen came to the school system’s board of education meeting Tuesday night with two empty egg cartons. The average price of eggs has skyrocketed amid avian flu-related shortages, making Allen’s cartons a visual and financial reminder of rising inflation. And yet, Allen pointed out, Superintendent Darryl L. Williams’ budget proposal for fiscal year 2024 does not include a cost of living adjustment, or COLA, for staff. The omission left Allen “quite surprised.”

With lawmakers facing a July 1 deadline to provide a framework for the legal use, possession, and sale of cannabis after voters approved full legalization in November, it’s clear, almost two weeks into the General Assembly session, that the task won’t be straightforward. While the public is generally enthusiastic about legalization, legislators have a lot of work to do to build a legal market that fulfills their commitments on issues like equity, public safety, and taxation and revenue. “The people of this state have spoken and they have spoken loudly,” said Moore at a press conference Thursday. “We cannot, we will not, repeat the mistakes that the state has made when medical cannabis was legalized. … [W]e have to get this right from day one.”

Every four years after an election, the Maryland governor makes what seems like routine appointments to the state’s 24 election boards, after seeking nominees from the local central committees of both the Democratic and Republican parties. For the last 8 years, with Gov. Larry Hogan (R) at the state’s helm, Republicans have held the majority on the local boards, but the new Democratic governor will flip the balance of power on the 24 boards when Gov. Wes Moore (D) makes his picks, giving Democrats the majority on the panels. Those election board appointments are arguably a fairly arcane responsibility so far as the general public goes, but they are decisions that are mighty important to party operatives and political insiders.

Baltimore will exhaust its federal eviction relief money by mid-March, officials told members of Baltimore City Council Tuesday, making the city the latest to sound the alarm about dwindling funds. Since 2020, the Mayor’s Office of Children and Family Success has received $82 million dollars in local, state, and federal funding for emergency rental assistance as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. The money is paid directly to tenants who lost income during the pandemic and have fallen behind on rent and is sometimes paid directly to landlords preparing to evict tenants for nonpayment.

School staff would receive protection from lawsuits stemming from discipling students under a proposed bill from Del. Robin Grammer, R-Baltimore, that is set to be heard in the General Assembly on Wednesday. “We have significant problems with public education,” Grammer told Capital News Service on Thursday. “The discipline issues are real, very real, despite the politicking around it.” Teachers are afraid to intervene in bullying and other disciplinary problems for fear of lawsuits, and, he said, that’s meant fewer teachers or teachers leaving the profession early.