Politics

The clock is ticking at the Maryland State House in Annapolis. Maryland lawmakers face a midnight deadline Monday on the final day of Legislative Session 2024, known as Sine Die. While many big ticket items are already on the governor’s desk, some significant pieces of legislation are still up for discussion at the last minute.

As state lawmakers move closer to passing new guardrails on the state’s retail electricity marketplace, an opposition army arrived on Friday. The energy giant Constellation sent two dozen trucks to Annapolis, which circled the legislative complex all morning as a few dozen Constellation workers fanned out to urge lawmakers to vote against Senate Bill 1.

The Anne Arundel County Council has created an ad hoc committee to study and make recommendations on personnel protocols related to the legislative branch. Beside the seven County Council members, Anne Arundel’s legislative branch includes the county auditor, administrative officer, assistant administrative officer and legislative counsel among others.

Legislation to aid workers and businesses during the disruption at the Port of Baltimore and another bill allowing for a state takeover of Pimlico Racetrack beat Monday’s midnight deadline despite being introduced late in the General Assembly session. Lawmakers had already passed roughly 500 bills by the last day of the 90-day session. Even so, several important late-filed bills remained for lawmakers to act on in the closing hours as midnight approached.

President Joe Biden got a firsthand look Friday at efforts to clear away the “mangled mess” of remains of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, as cranes, ships and diving crews work to reopen one of the nation’s main shipping lanes. Aboard Marine One, circling the warped metal remains and the mass of construction and salvage equipment trying to clear the wreckage of last week’s collapse, which killed six workers, Biden got an up close view of the devastation.

Speaking in front of the Patapsco River and the wreckage of the Francis Scott Key Bridge Collapse, President Joe Biden reiterated his desire for the federal government to pay for a new bridge and shared condolences with the families of the construction workers who died. “We’ve come here to grieve with you. We all are,” Biden said.

In order to raise hundreds of millions more dollars each year for the Maryland’s transportation, education and trauma programs, state lawmakers are raising a variety of fees and taxes. They avoided broad-based hikes in income taxes or sales taxes, in favor of targeted ways to raise revenue. But if you own a car, take an Uber or smoke cigarettes, you’ll feel the pinch.

Nearly a dozen candidates, both Republican and Democrat, aiming to be Maryland’s next United States Congressional District Six representative came to the Washington County Free Library in downtown Hagerstown on Saturday to share their remarks with the community. The forum, sponsored by the Washington County branch of the NAACP, gave each candidate a couple minutes to introduce themselves to the dozens assembled in the upstairs conference room before moderator Eddie Peters, the president and owner of Vocal Expressions, asked candidates questions prepared in advance from the nonpartisan organization’s political action committee.