Politics

Service workers and restaurant owners who say tipped employees have been left behind in Maryland’s recent minimum wage increase renewed a fight this week to end the state’s $3.63 tipped wage. The legislation they’re backing — which stalled a year ago and faces an uphill battle again in the Maryland General Assembly — would prohibit employers from paying workers the special lower-tier wage, which is allowed as long as those earnings combined with customers’ tips match or exceed the $15 state minimum wage.

Just two days after the Maryland Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee heard emotional testimony from the widow of Washington County Circuit judge Andrew F. Wilkinson about her husband’s murder, the panel voted Friday to advance legislation that would protect personal information of judicial officials. The 10-1 vote moved Senate Bill 575 to the full Senate chamber, where discussion could take place early next week.

The county’s agricultural character was front and center during Tuesday’s meeting of the Washington County Board of Commissioners, as they discussed land preservation efforts, mainly in the southern portion of the county, and approved a request for a zoning overlay near its northern border. They approved a request from Rural Preservation Administrator Chris Boggs to apply for $7.6 million in grants from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources for the Rural Legacy Program for Fiscal Year 2025, which begins July 1.

U.S. Senators Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen announced Friday that federal funds will be used to bolster flooding mitigation efforts in Dorchester County’s city of Cambridge in Maryland. This money will support a flood barrier along the Choptank River’s shoreline that will “weaken wave strength, prevent erosion, enhance ecological development, and improve water quality,” according to a news release from Sen. Cardin’s office.

At a most basic level, candidates’ campaign finance statements provide a snapshot into the fundraising prowess and financial well-being of a particular campaign. But a deeper dive into these dense and numbers-laden documents can also reveal truths about a candidate’s lineage and strategy, the circles in which they travel, and their worldview.

In his previous three bids for office, Baltimore mayoral candidate Thiru Vignarajah has run financially competitive campaigns, some costing upward of $1 million, fueled by donations from some of the region’s most well-funded business executives and community leaders. The families of local real estate leader John Luetkemeyer, Baltimore Sun owner and Sinclair Chairman David D. Smith and Baltimore Orioles Chairman and CEO John Angelos are among those who have backed his past efforts, in addition to over 100 more who supported with maximum contributions or donated to a PAC backing Vignarajah.

Over 20 pro-labor legislators gathered with members of six different unions on Thursday to show support for three bills that would, if passed, extend the right to unionize and collectively bargain to Maryland workers who are currently ineligible. “It is not picking and choosing among our brothers and sisters, it is we all move together,” Maryland State and DC AFL-CIO President Donna Edwards said at a news conference in Annapolis. “As we move forward together, so do workers that don’t have the ability to be in a union right now.”

Maryland lawmakers are working to criminalize the use of a device called “Glock switches” that convert firearms into automatic weapons, 11 News has learned. “At its most basic level, a Glock switch takes a legal gun and turns it into an illegal machine gun,” Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski said. The switches are as small as dice and can be made by 3D printers of metal or plastic.