Politics

In Kansas, a record number of primary voters overwhelmingly opted to protect it. In New York, a congressional candidate in a close race centered his campaign on it and won. And in November, voters in California, Vermont and Michigan will decide whether to amend their state constitutions to guarantee a right to it. The right to abortion — a perennial, if at times sidelined, issue in U.S. politics — is center stage after the U.S. Supreme Court this summer overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that had protected the procedure as a constitutional right since 1973. The court sent the issue back to the states, to immediate effect. Multiple states banned or severely restricted abortion. Those outraged by the decision girded for battles that have played out in primaries across the country and soon, November’s general election.

For beach-goers who struggle to get across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, the need for a new, wider span might seem like a no-brainer. Westbound traffic leading to the bridge on Labor Day, the unofficial end to the summer vacation season, stretched 14 miles at its peak. In June many transportation advocates applauded Republican Gov. Larry Hogan’s decision to set aside $28 million to advance the state’s pursuit of a new Bay crossing. He called the move an important step in reducing summertime and commuter traffic in Anne Arundel and Queen Anne’s counties. But Maryland Transportation Authority officials cautioned on Wednesday that the process of analyzing alternatives and assessing environmental impacts will run well into the future.

Mayor Brandon Scott called in to speak with C4 & Bryan Nehman on Wednesday morning about the boil water advisory situation in West Baltimore and some surrounding areas. Scott said they still don’t know the source of the water contamination in West Baltimore and continue to wait for the results from the retesting of water samples.

The top Republican leader in the Maryland Senate declined to endorse his party’s nominee for governor on Tuesday as Republicans continue to grapple with far-right conservative Dan Cox at the top of the ticket. Senate Minority Leader Bryan Simonaire, speaking about the need to break Democrats’ supermajority control in the Legislature, said he was solely focused on the candidates for state Senate and had no plans to endorse any of the statewide nominees.

In 2016, Baltimore City leaders passed a measure that would allow any resident to obtain a municipal identification card. They hailed it as an important step toward making government services and programs more accessible to some of the city’s most vulnerable, including immigrants living in the country without legal permission, transgender individuals and those experiencing homelessness. However, the municipal ID program was never funded or implemented. Six years later, Councilwoman Odette Ramos wants to find out why.

A Baltimore Circuit Court judge has ruled in favor of the Baltimore City Board of Elections, upholding the board’s decision to block a question about transit from appearing on city ballots this fall. Judge Lawrence Fletcher-Hill ruled late Wednesday that the Baltimore Transit Equity Coalition failed to make its case for overturning the election board’s decision to dismiss its petition asking voters to establish a fund pushing for a regional transit authority. The group submitted 14,145 signatures in favor of the proposed ballot question — more than the 10,000 required by law — but more than 4,400 were deemed invalid by city election officials.

U.S. Rep. David Trone said Wednesday that $4.8 million in funding for a new Fayette Street bridge is included in the federal government’s 2023 budget and not an earmark this time around. Trone gave an update on funding for construction at the bridge site during a visit to Cumberland Wednesday. The two-lane bridge, which spans CSX railroad tracks, was damaged when it was stuck by a train in June 2018, forcing its closure. CSX opted to pay for a partial repair, allowing the span to open to one lane of traffic in January 2020.

Baltimore’s spending board approved a $575,000 settlement Wednesday stemming from an arrest made by members of the city’s Gun Trace Task Force, bringing the total paid out as a result of the rogue force’s actions to more than $15 million. The five-member Board of Estimates voted unanimously in favor of the settlement reached with Darnell Earl, who sued the Baltimore Police Department and three members of the task force over a 2015 arrest that resulted in a year and a half of jail time.