We’re in touch this week with the deep gratitude we feel for our members, volunteers, supporters and leaders. All of you have helped us make the most of this critical election year! We’ll be spending the rest of 2022 planning our work for the upcoming legislative session, our annual Membership meeting and other important events. Thank you for all of your involvement and the ways in which you inspire us. We appreciate all of our affiliates and partners, too, who have helped us build more grassroots power this year. 

We’d also like to use this week’s opening message to express our sorrow and outrage about the deadly attack on LGBTQ folks who were gathered at Club Q in Colorado Springs this past weekend. The patrons were gathered to see a drag show on the eve of Transgender Day of Remembrance. Our hearts go out to everyone who was there, to those who are injured and recovering, to the queer community in Colorado, and all the families and friends who lost someone dear to them.

In this Memo: News about our election wins; about task forces and chapters around the state; a roundup of News you can Use, and catalog of recent blog posts. Read on...

In Maryland, elections continue to break glad for Democrats and in fact around the country (some counties still counting, tho)... Hogan's signature superhighways (with tolls) will be at the mercy of a new all-Dem Board of Public Works... Maryland's schools are so-so in the national ratings but forging ahead on reform with both state and federal financial backup... Maryland's state workers are at an all-time low across state agencies; a good way to save money? ... at the national level, health care and housing continue to be top priorities for working families. It's all in News You Can Use. Read on....

Progressive Maryland is incredibly proud to have many wins with candidates they endorsed this 2022 General Election. 

The full list of Progressive Maryland's 47 winning endorsed candidates are as follows:

Ballot Measures

• Cannabis Legalization 

Executive Offices

• Wes Moore, Governor
• Anthony Brown, Attorney General
• Brooke Lierman, Comptroller

State Senate 

• Karen Lewis Young, District 3
• Clarence Lam, District 12
• Brian Feldman, District 15
• Susan Lee, District 16
• Jim Rosapepe, District 21
• Dawn Gile, District 33
• Mary Washington, District 43 

State House of Delegates 

• Jennifer White, District 10
• Dana Stein, District 11
• Pamela Queen, District 14
• David Fraser-Hidalgo, District 15
• Linda Foley, District 15
• Joe Vogel, District 17
• Julie Palakovich Carr, District 17
• Emily Shetty, District 18
• Bonnie Cullison, District 19
• Vaughn Stewart, District 19
• David Moon, District 20
• Lorig Charkoudian, District 20
• Alonzo Washington, District 22
• Adrian Boafo, District 23
• Jazz Lewis, District 24
• Jamila Woods, District 26
• Gabe Acevero, District 39
• Leslie Lopez, District 39
• Samuel Rosenberg, District 41
• Eric Ebersole, District 44a
• Sheila Ruth, District 44b
• Aleithia McCaskill, District 44b
• Mark Edelson, District 46
• Diana Fennell, District 47a

Local Races

• Jacob Bennett, Harford County Council District F
• Marc Elrich, Montgomery County Executive 
• Laurie-Anne Sayles, Montgomery County Council At-Large
• Will Jawando, Montgomery County Council At-Large
• Kate Stewart, Montgomery County Council District 4
• Natali Fani-Gonzalez, Montgomery County Council District 6
• Grace Rivera-Oven, Montgomery County Board of Education District 1
• Eric Olson, PG County Council District 3
• Wala Blegay, PG County Council District 6
• Krystal Oriadha, PG County Council District 7
• Edward Burroughs III, PG County Council District 8
• Jonathan Briggs, PG County Board of Education District 2
• Branndon Jackson, PG County Board of Education District 6

Antisemitism is rising globally. We are seeing this in mainstream media with prominent figures such as Elon Musk, who recently tweeted out a picture of a Nazi soldier with the caption “how times have changed”. This builds into an existing pattern of his, citing back to earlier this year when he tweeted out a picture of Hitler declaring admiration for his budget, which involved millions of dollars to execute the “Final Solution”, resulting in the deliberate genocide of six million Jewish people. 

We are also seeing it attack our local communities.

Bethesda Trolley Trail and Tuckerman Lane in Montgomery County were vandalized overnight with extremist antisemitic graffiti calling for violence against Jewish Marylanders. This isn’t the first time antisemitic rhetoric has been graffitied on Bethesda Trolley Trail or in the wider Maryland. “White Power” and “1488” were similary spraypainted in red on the trail in August of this year. 

Marc Elrich, Montgomery County Executive, said in a statement this morning that “...we must combat these tragic and despicable incidents through unity in every neighborhood and community throughout the County. We are one of the most diverse jurisdictions anywhere in the world and now is a time when we need to use it to make us stronger. We must support and uplift our Jewish community during this time and we must continue to not tolerate hate in any form in Montgomery County, the state of Maryland and in this nation.” 

At the current time, no one has been arrested for this hate crime. 

Now is the time to stand with Jewish Marylanders, and to educate yourself on antisemitism and dogwhistles when they appear. The graffiti included swastikas, white power symbols, and the numbers 1488 and 133. Notably, 1488 is a numerical neo-Nazi dogwhistles that joins the “14 words”, a white supremacist slogan “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children” coined by David Lane, combined with “88”, which refers to the eighth letter in the alphabet, “H”. “88” means “HH”, or Heil Hitler. “131” refers to “NSC-131”, a neo-Nazi and white-supremacist group known as the Nationalist Socialist Club that has chapters throughout New England. Being able to recognize antisemitism when it occurs is essential to holding your community accountable on a local and large scale. 

Progressive Maryland stands in solidarity with Jewish Marylanders. Swift action was taken to remove the graffiti, but that cannot be where our effort ends. There is so much more work to be done to ensure the safety of our Jewish community in Maryland. We must support and uplift the greater Jewish community in Maryland during this time, and continue to be intolerant of hate and antisemitic violence on a wider scale. 

The results (or at least most of them) are in! We used our voices and our votes to elect more women and people of color to offices up and down the ballot, to legalize cannabis, and to affirm our support of democracy! We’re taking some time this week and next to celebrate and to reflect on our 2022 electoral program and the overall election results.

Follow Progressive Maryland's Weekly Memo for updates on these and many other issues and campaigns on behalf of working families' interests.

Democrats in Maryland swept the top state elected offices -- governor, comptroller and attorney general -- and all three now have a long list of promises to keep. They or their campaigns are responding to questions about how to get there from here. Plus health news that could have been buried by 24/7 ballot-counting, and the steady rumble of statewide education policy, gearing up for big changes.

And -- big surprise -- Georgia officials have already come up with a way to excuse voter suppression for the Senate runoff.

The chair of Progressive Maryland's board, Sean Dobson, remembers Del. Sheila Hixson, the longest-serving woman in the General Assembly.  She died in New Smyrna Beach, Fla. last Sunday at 89.

This is it! Election Day is tomorrow! If you or your family members haven’t yet voted, you need to go to the polls tomorrow! Polls open at 7:00 a.m. We strongly recommend that you go in the morning and take care of this important civic duty before getting into the rest of your day. If you’ve received your ballot by mail be sure to drop it at a drop box today or tomorrow before 8:00 p.m.

Questions about voting? Check out this guide. Folks who are not registered can still register to vote and vote in person tomorrow.

This election year, we’re taking our demands for a more just and inclusive Maryland to the ballot box. We have a chance to vote for candidates and ballot measures that will support our communities and protect our democracy. Be sure to vote up and down the ballot: all of these elected officials matter in our day to day lives because of the important decisions they make.

People are voting tomorrow all over the country, every state, “the great mystery of democracy” as a 20^th-century political sage called it will actually happen and the polls will be history, right or wrong. The era of early voting including mail-in has muddled that sense of one-day-settles-all. Here is the morning tally from Pluribus News: More than 40.5 million Americans have voted already this year, according to University of Florida political scientist Michael McDonald’s U.S. Elections Project. In the 23 states where voters register by party, Democrats hold a 43%-34% turnout edge.

Also in News You Can Use this week: Election disruption attempts in Maryland and some other states; Congress's "lame duck" session; Wes Moore gets ink; a West Virginia refugee crisis here? Read on.

Hensci (Hello)!

My name is Bee and I am Mvskoke, a Native American tribe located in Oklahoma. In honor of my ancestors, I am writing to you from my home in Annapolis, on stolen Susquehannock and Piscataway land.

We would like to take a moment to honor the legacy-past, present, and future-of the Native American people on this land. It is our responsibility to acknowledge the ongoing effects of settler colonialism, and to recognize that we benefit from the displacement, genocide, and past and present violence against Indigenous people on whose ancestral lands present-day United States, including the state of Maryland, stands. 

We acknowledge the Accohannock Indian Tribe, Assateague Peoples Tribe, Nause-Waiwash Band of Indians, Piscataway Conoy Tribe, Piscataway Indian Nation, Pocomoke Indian Nation and Youghiogheny River Band of Shawnee Indians as the original stewards of Maryland's lands. See the historical boundaries, languages, and treaties of the tribes in Maryland here. 

We acknowledge all Native American peoples in Maryland and on the wider Turtle Island, including those who are displaced and detribalized, who have had their identities and cultures stolen through the larger effects of colonialism and assimilation. 

When we say we are working toward a more just and equitable future for Marylanders, that includes our Indigenous communities. There is so much work to be done—passing federal and state legislation for reparations; formally acknowledging Indigenous history and land rights; and, of course, ensuring that Native residents have affordable healthcare and housing, access to quality education, clean air and drinking water, and the many other basic human rights that everyone deserves. Progressive Maryland is committed to this work.

This month provides an opportunity to celebrate rich and diverse traditions, cultures, and histories and to acknowledge the unique contributions of Native people. Discover ways to appropriately reflect Native values in your life this month, such as finding new ways to be sustainable to the land and resources around you. In honor of my Mvskoke ancestors, I encourage you to not only take today to learn more about Native American history and cultures, but to do more in the fight for Native American people. We promise we will do the same. 

Sincerely,

Bee Van Hall (they/them)
Social Media Coordinator for Progressive Maryland