Md. legislature should go into special session for crises
The Maryland General Assembly must reconvene for a special session to address the COVID-19 pandemic, police brutality and the 2020 general election.
My Democratic colleagues and I have sent letter after letter to Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, pleading for him to take immediate action on police brutality, to extend the moratorium on evictions and foreclosures and to send mail-in ballots to every registered voter without requiring they first request the ballot. To date, none of these requests have been met.
Under the Maryland Constitution, the governor has the power to call a special session, and, if he does not do so on his own, he can be required to do so by a petition of the majority of the members of each chamber of the state legislature. With that in mind, a couple of weeks ago, I circulated such a petition to my colleagues.
In Annapolis, the Democratic Party holds veto-proof super majorities in both chambers, legislation can be passed without a single Republican vote, and even our Republican governor’s vetoes can be overridden with relative ease. It is a tragedy that during an international pandemic, when advocates say as many as 330,000 Marylanders could be at risk of being evicted by the end of the year, and after our governor has decided to put every election worker and inperson voter at risk to being infected by COVID-19, we are still allowing him to wield authority granted to him due to the General Assembly not being in session.
Governor Hogan has not issued executive orders on police brutality and transparency that 99 House Democrats signed onto. Governor Hogan has directed $30 million dollars to go toward providing eviction relief, while advocates have called for four times that amount, and Baltimore City alone has set aside $13 million dollars for city renters. Most recently, Governor Hogan announced that elections would be held largely in person and added a requirement that mail-in ballots be re
We wouldn’t have to beg our governor, who has never demonstrated any interest in or commitment to addressing police brutality, to make common sense policing reforms like banning chokeholds and shooting at vehicles.