Politics

Maryland Democrats are making their pitch later this week to have more say in the presidential nominating process with an earlier primary in 2024. Party leaders are scheduled to address the Democratic National Committee’s Rules and By-laws Committee on Thursday afternoon, as the DNC looks to shake up the nominating process across the nation and allow different regions to be represented at the start of the primary season in 2024.

For the past eight years, Baltimoreans have watched as their governor, more often than not, criticized the city more than he praised the city. Gov. Larry Hogan, like most politicians, professed to love Baltimore. But he axed a major transit project, engaged in pitched battles with city leaders, and counts bringing in the National Guard following civil unrest and rioting in 2015 as one of his greatest successes. Now, with Hogan moving on after two terms, there’s an opportunity for a different relationship between the leader of the state and the state’s largest city. Arguably, a new executive could matter more to Baltimore than any other Maryland jurisdiction.

Maryland and Virginia politicians vying for the prize of a new FBI headquarters have just a few months left before a crucial federal government decision. The U.S. General Services Administration is expected to pick the best of three locations as soon as September, ending nearly two decades of advocacy, confusion and frustration across four presidencies about whether the FBI should move to the suburbs bordering the District of Columbia or stay downtown. GSA staffers told Congress last week during closed-door briefings that all three possible locations selected as options during the Obama administration — Greenbelt and Landover in Maryland and Springfield, Va. — are still viable locations for the future FBI headquarters.

Mayor Brandon Scott on Tuesday called on the Walters Art Museum to allow its employees to vote on unionizing, saying union membership helped his family join the Black middle class. “Unions give workers the platform to unite and advocate for their own working conditions and deserve to be celebrated,” Scott wrote in a letter to the museum’s board of trustees. “Ultimately, the right of workers to organize and form collective bargaining units is a fundamental component of our democracy and, as such, must be protected.”

The House 1/6 committee outlined on Tuesday Donald Trump’s relentless pressure to overturn the 2020 presidential election, aiming to show it led to widespread personal threats on the stewards of American democracy — election workers and local officials who fended off the defeated president’s efforts. The panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the U.S. Capitol resumed with a focus on Trump’s efforts to undo Joe Biden’s victory in the most local way — by leaning on officials in key battleground states to reject ballots outright or to submit alternative electors for the final tally in Congress.

Katie Speert announced this week that she is dropping out of the race for a seat on the Carroll County Board of Education. Speert was one of eight candidates who filed to run for three open seats on the board. Speert, executive director of Westminster nonprofit Together We Own It, said the organization was awarded funding from a partnership with the Carroll County Public Schools system through the federal American Rescue Plan, creating a conflict of interest. She announced her decision to withdraw from the race in an emotional Facebook video post on June 8.

Anderson is running for his ninth four-year term as sheriff, a position that many city voters give little thought to. But his challenger, Sam Cogen, a former top deputy, would like to change that. Cogen, 48, believes that the sheriff’s office could and should take a more active role in reducing violent crime in the city, in part by adopting modern technology to make the office more efficient.