Politics

Following the deadly shootings at three Georgia spas, Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin decried the recent wave of anti-Asian violence and discrimination that has even affected members of Gov. Larry Hogan’s family. “Governor Hogan told me that close family friends have been assaulted in a convenience store, screamed at by racists telling them to go back to China and told that they did not want to sit next to them on an airplane because they were Asian and had COVID,” Raskin recounted during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday.

After debating social issues including vouchers for private schools and access to abortion, the House of Delegates gave initial approval to a $50.45 billion budget plan Thursday. The chamber debated aspects of the spending plan for more than two hours Thursday night, ultimately approving a budget that was significantly bolstered by a dramatic influx in federal stimulus funding and state revenues that were recently projected at about $900 million more than previous estimates.

When the House of Delegates voted earlier this month to advance House Bill 655, Speaker Adrienne A. Jones (D-Baltimore County) celebrated the moment, writing on social media that “for too long across this country, undemocratic local laws have denied voters of color their full enfranchisement.” The measure would require that county commissioners who represent districts be elected solely by the voters of that district, not the entire county.

State Del. Dereck E. Davis (D-Prince George’s) has served in the House of Delegates for 27 years and has been chairman of the Economic Matters Committee for the last 19. In years past, he frequently became annoyed when he slipped out of the committee room to answer nature’s call and found himself waylaid by lobbyists or advocates on his way to the men’s room. Now, he’s feeling nostalgic about those encounters.

Maryland Senate Republicans tried Tuesday to change how a sweeping climate action bill would be paid for by offering two amendments with alternative funding strategies, but both efforts failed in votes on the Senate floor. The Climate Solutions Now Act of 2021 aims to cut pollution in Maryland which contributes to global warming to a level that is 60% lower than it was in 2006, within the next decade. To achieve that, it sets a goal of planting 5 million trees by 2030, mandates electrifying the state government’s vehicle fleet, requires constructing more energy efficient school buildings, and other efforts.

The report, written by former Montgomery County police chief J. Thomas Manger, is a nearly line-by-line response to the analysis in the Graham report. Where the Graham report asserts that use-of-force investigations are not thorough because 99.8  percent of force incidents are found to be justified, the Manger report argues that the high justification rate implies that officers are well-trained and do not use inappropriate force.

The Maryland Coal Community Transition Act of 2021 was withdrawn during a committee voting session on Monday, so that environmentalists and labor unions can continue to work together during the legislative interim on what a just transition from coal would look like. House Bill 66 is a bipartisan bill that would have phased out Maryland’s coal-fired plants and established a Fossil Fuel Community Transition Fund and a Fossil Fuel Transition Advisory Council to mitigate economic impacts for displaced employees.