Politics

Ballot questions in Baltimore almost never fail. Over the past two decades, more than 100 questions have been put to city voters, probing their thoughts on issues ranging from borrowing money to making it easier for the City Council to oust a mayor. During that time, voters have rejected only one question, a 2004 effort to lower the minimum age to become a council member.

Frederick County executive candidate Jessica Fitzwater raised more than double the amount that her opponent, state Sen. Michael Hough, brought in from early July to late August, according to new campaign finance reports. Fitzwater, a Democrat who since 2014 has represented the east side of Frederick on the County Council, raised $124,000 between July 4 and Aug. 23, the period for the latest campaign finance reports.

The family of a broadcast television company that has supported Thiru Vignarajah for political office used a super PAC to provide him with hundreds of thousands of dollars of extra support in his losing bid to become Baltimore’s next state’s attorney, new campaign disclosures show. Four members of the Smith family, who are associated with Hunt Valley-based Sinclair Broadcast Group, were joined by Orioles chairman and CEO John Angelos and a lawyer in donating a combined $220,000 to a group that spent the money on ads promoting Vignarajah just before he lost the July primary to Ivan Bates.

Baltimore City officials are in the process of setting up a new state-mandated police accountability board tasked with weighing in on policy discussions and appointing members to a smaller disciplinary committee that will investigate citizen complaints. Applications for the board are due Friday. The city is acting later than other jurisdictions, largely because it was slowed by a prolonged fight in Annapolis that left many criminal justice advocates dissatisfied with how the new oversight group is taking shape.

Democratic gubernatorial nominee Wes Moore, fresh off a competitive primary in which he outraised and outspent more experienced political opponents, has kept up a robust fundraising pace with just under $1.5 million on hand heading into Maryland’s fall election season — more than tenfold the amount his Republican opponent reported, new campaign finance reports show. Moore raised $1.7 million in the five weeks after the July 19 primary, and $2.3 million total since the last campaign finance update in early July, according to reports filed Tuesday.

Ballot questions in Baltimore almost never fail. Over the past two decades, more than 100 questions have been put to city voters, probing their thoughts on issues ranging from borrowing money to making it easier for the City Council to oust a mayor. During that time, voters have rejected only one question, a 2004 effort to lower the minimum age to become a council member. That makes the odds high that Baltimore voters will approve a proposed two-term limit for the city’s top elected officials. The question was the only one to emerge from numerous efforts that gathered petition signatures this year in hopes of getting issues on the ballot.