Politics

Securing financial assistance for once-in-a-generation infrastructure projects and cash-strapped state programs is a top priority for Maryland leaders heading into the next presidential administration. So it may not have been surprising Tuesday when President Joe Biden returned to the Port of Baltimore to highlight his administration’s infrastructure investments just one week before voters will finish selecting his successor — someone who, according to the Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris supporters in Maryland, will either mean a continued helping hand or the proverbial rug being pulled out from under them.

Comptroller Brooke Lierman on Wednesday scolded the University System of Maryland and five of its institutions for lacking “any sort of rhyme or reason” in the procurement processes they used to award dining service contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars. University representatives pointed out that they weren’t in their current roles when the contracts were first sent out for bid, and they were unable to explain some decisions that their predecessors made.

Former President Donald Trump is proposing mass deportation if he is elected, and that could have major economic and social impacts in Maryland, a state where immigration has for years been making up for losses in population and the native-born labor force. Nearly 30% of the state’s population is foreign born, and about 225,000 people are in the state without authorization. Maryland is also home to just under another 250,000 people who are authorized to live in the country but are not naturalized.

The taxman cometh for everyone. Even the state. For the first time in memory — perhaps ever — the Internal Revenue Service audited Maryland government. And it turns out Maryland taxpayers owe Uncle Sam at least $5.4 million for tax year 2020. “This is a new one,” Comptroller Brooke Lierman said at Wednesday’s Board of Public Works meeting where the audit was discussed. “It might be the first time the state has ever been audited. We looked back 30 years and it had not happened before,” she said.

Democrats facing tightening polls are trying to pull off the political equivalent of the “Miracle in Maryland,” a Hail Mary pass Sunday in Landover from Washington Commanders rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels to Noah Brown so impressive it has its own Wikipedia page. But can the incumbent party in the White House pull off a win, in seven battleground states in seven days, as the Commanders did with 10 seconds and a 52-yard pass?

There’s an old saying about madness, and it was Shannon Wright, not a reporter, who evoked it. “We all know the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome,” the Republican mayoral candidate said during a recent interview. Wright, 57, was referring to the idea that city voters may return her opponent Mayor Brandon Scott to office for a second term. But the cliche could just as easily be self-referential.