Politics

To encourage the Washington Commanders to stay in Maryland, the Maryland House approved a $400 million plan to develop the area around FedEx Field, but it does not include money for a new stadium for the NFL team. The House voted 121-10 for the bill, which now goes to the Senate with less than a week to go in the state’s legislative session. The General Assembly is scheduled to adjourn Monday at midnight.

In an interview with WBAL NewsRadio Wednesday, Maryland Republican Congressman Andy Harris defended his vote against a nonbinding resolution to support NATO, noting it unfairly criticized the governments of Hungary and Poland, who are NATO Members. The House on Tuesday evening passed a nonbinding resolution reaffirming its “unequivocal support for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as an alliance founded on democratic principles.”

A proposal to change the city of Frederick’s salary structure could make the city more competitive in attracting new workers, according to the city’s mayor. But some of the city’s aldermen are concerned that one part of the restructuring plan could perpetuate historical discrimination in the city’s hiring policies.

There were clear losers and obvious winners when Republican Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. on Monday signed the second congressional map that the General Assembly passed. This came after Democratic legislators dropped their appeal to a court ruling overturning their first congressional map. But there were some less obvious winners and losers as well.

A Maryland appeals court has expressed exasperation with defense attorneys who it said confuse decriminalization with legalization when trying to suppress the introduction of evidence found in their clients’ automobiles by police officers who saw or smelled small amounts of marijuana before conducting their search. The confusion is based on the “tendency … of defense counsel to overread, stubbornly  and massively,” Maryland’s 2014 law that made possession of less than 10 grams of marijuana a civil offense sanctionable by a $100 fine rather than a crime punishable by incarceration, the Court of Special Appeals stated in a reported 3-0 opinion Monday.

The Maryland House of Delegates passed a measure Monday that would make declawing cats illegal in Maryland. Delegates voted 102-24 in favor of Senate Bill 67, which previously cleared the state Senate by a 32-14 vote late last month. The bill now heads to the desk of Gov. Larry Hogan, whose signature would make Maryland the second state in the U.S. to outlaw the practice of declawing. Under the legislation, it would be illegal for veterinarians and residents to perform declawing procedures on cats unless it is necessary to deal with a medical condition.