Politics

Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby deflected responsibility for a lack of prosecutors in her office while lashing out at media reports about the staffing shortages during a Baltimore City Council hearing Monday night about her agency’s budget. Mosby, a Democrat who this year is seeking her third term as the city’s elected prosecutor, is asking the City Council for $39.6 million for the fiscal year starting July 1, a modest increase over this year.

A new 30-second ad touting former U.S. Labor Secretary Tom Perez in the Democratic primary for governor began airing on Baltimore TV stations Friday. Only it wasn’t made or paid for by Perez’s campaign. The authority line at the end of the ad says it was paid for by Maryland Opportunity Inc., a political action committee that registered with the Maryland State Board of Elections earlier this spring. Little is known about the people behind it. In the board of elections filing, the committee chair is listed as Selena Lewis.

A House work group on marijuana legalization will hold its first meeting since the legislative session on June 14, Judiciary Chairman Luke Clippinger said Friday at the Maryland State Bar Association’s legal summit. That information came as news to Sen. Brian Feldman, a key champion of cannabis legalization in the Maryland Senate who was serving on the same panel as Clippinger at the MSBA conference. Feldman said he had expected more collaboration between the two chambers, which have a host of issues to sift through in the coming year, both ahead of and after a November referendum on legalization that is expected to pass.

Prince George’s Board of Education Chair Juanita Miller signaled on Friday that she has no plans to resign, despite a direct request a day earlier from the woman who appointed her, County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks (D). In a video statement emailed to Maryland Matters, Miller said she intends to fight charges leveled at her by the state Board of Education late last month. Those charges include the failure to sign a legal services contract with a law firm that was the choice of a majority of Miller’s colleagues.

After two years of a temporary provision to allow remote voting in the U.S. House, the top 36 users of the proxy voting system are all Democrats, though Republicans have also taken advantage of it. Proxy voting was meant to keep crowds of House members smaller and thereby limit the spread of COVID-19, back in the early days of the pandemic. The first proxy votes were cast on May 27, 2020.

After months of work sessions, the Westminster mayor and Common Council’s recently approved 2023 fiscal plans for the city include a capital budget of $47.6 million and a total operating budget of $32.5 million. The approved budget contains no increase in the real property tax rate for the 10th consecutive year. The city will maintain a tax rate of 56 cents per $100 of assessed value. Expected increases in property values means the city stands to collect more in fiscal 2023 from that tax rate, as the constant yield rate was set at 54 cents per $100 of assessed value.