Politics

Baltimore County is violating its own laws when it rehires county employees who have retired and either doesn’t notify the County Council or keeps the employees on the payroll for several years, the county inspector general said in a report released this week. The county has changed its laws three times since 2010 to outline under what terms a retired county employee can return. The County Council passed the most recent law in 2021.

April McClain Delaney, the Democratic nominee running to represent Maryland’s 6th District in Congress, raised over a million dollars in connection with her campaign in the second quarter of 2024 — about 80% of which came from the candidate herself. According to quarterly campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on Monday, McClain Delaney raised $1,034,297 during the second quarter of 2024.

On a quiet street just two blocks from the Donald Trump-inspired euphoria inside the Republican National Convention, a small group of the disaffected were mourning a party they once knew, now long gone. Maryland’s former Republican Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, the star attraction at the gathering of anti-Trump conservatives, had strong words for his party — one that he said “needs the biggest political enema it has ever seen.”

While Maryland Republicans cheered J.D. Vance on the floor of the Republican National Convention this week, their former governor and current GOP U.S. Senate candidate was back home on TV, ducking questions about Donald Trump’s vice-presidential pick. “The two of us have pretty different views of the world,” Larry Hogan told a CBS interviewer.

Dozens of aging bridges in 16 states will be replaced or improved with the help of $5 billion in federal grants announced Wednesday by President Joe Biden’s administration, the latest beneficiaries of a massive infrastructure law. The projects range from coast to coast, with the largest providing an additional $1.4 billion to help replace two vertical lift bridges over the Columbia River that carry Interstate 5 traffic between Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington.

As the country’s premier Republican Party event was nearing its first-night high on Monday, the party’s most successful candidate in modern Maryland politics — one whose next chapter is on the line in just a few months — was the elephant not in the room. Larry Hogan, the two-time former governor and nominee for U.S. Senate this year, was 800 miles away, making him the only major Republican candidate in a competitive Senate race not in Milwaukee for his party’s third celebration of Donald Trump atop the ticket.

Prince George’s County Council unanimously approved a rent increase cap, becoming the second county in Maryland to approve rent stabilization legislation. The bill establishes a 3% cap plus inflation, or 6%, whichever is lower. However, buildings constructed after 2000 would be exempt. District 7 Council Member Krystal Oriadha, who led the rent stabilization effort, said it is a huge step in the right direction.

The Montgomery County Council passed Tuesday new tenant safety regulations inspired by a deadly February 2023 fire at the Arrive Silver Spring apartment complex that claimed the life of 25-year-old Melanie Diaz. The legislation will require residential leases to include information related to renter’s insurance, automatic sprinkler systems and emergency evacuation and safety plans.