Politics

Arguing that its hands were tied by the likely implementation of term limits, the Baltimore City Council advanced a bill Monday reducing the number of years required for elected officials to receive a pension. The legislation, introduced by Council President Nick Mosby, calls for Baltimore to offer pensions to city officials after eight years of service. Currently, the requirement is 12. The council voted, 9-2, in favor of the bill that city retirement and finance officials warned could be costly for the city in years to come. Three members, Councilmen Mark Conway and Eric Costello and Councilwoman Phylicia Porter, abstained. Councilmen Zeke Cohen and Ryan Dorsey voted against the measure. The bill still faces one more vote from the council before it heads to the desk of Mayor Brandon Scott.

A long list of Maryland leaders at the federal, state, and local level, many of them Black, stood in front of the entrance to the Greenbelt Metro Station on Friday and spoke into microphones as if there was a speaker connected to the Oval Office. While the audience on hand may have been local media, the intended audience was the Biden administration. Maryland’s elected leaders at all levels were blindsided by the updated scoring system put out by the General Services Administration as it gets ready to choose the site of a new FBI headquarters. Several of them took turns blasting those changes, while also focusing on the president’s pledge to make the federal government more equitable, which was issued through an executive order on Day One.

Many elections feature an incumbent facing a challenger, but the race for a state Senate seat from District 9 boasts a current Democratic senator waging a fierce battle against a Republican who confidently labels himself a future senator. Katie Fry Hester, a moderate Democrat who ousted Republican Sen. Gail Bates four years ago in a conservative district, is hearing a lot of tough words from the candidate whose mailings bill him as “Future State Senator Reid Novotny.” “Just a short 4 years ago, the far-left incumbent rode the blue wave into office by less than 1/2 of 1%,” reads a campaign email sent out by Novotny. “From there she continued to vote with the left 98% of the time and does not represent this area.”

A tight Maryland race to succeed Frederick County Executive Jan Gardner is near its finish ahead of Tuesday’s election. Two-term Republican state Sen. Michael Hough is running against two-term Frederick County councilwoman and Democratic candidate Jessica Fitzwater to succeed the term-limited Gardner — who is also a Democrat. Fitzwater told WTOP that she’s ready to “get to work” and wants Frederick County to continue “on a path of progress.” An elementary music teacher and former union activist, Fitzwater said she wants to use a “common-sense approach that’s going to bring people together to solve problems and make life better for people.” More affordable housing, protecting the environment and investing in education are some of the key areas Fitzwater said she would focus on if elected, according to her campaign website.