Important hearings and, later, votes on funding commitments, including to maintain and continue the critical Kirwan proposal to improve Maryland’s K-12 schools are coming up in the General Assembly.

Find out how to make that work in your community Feb. 8

How To Reclaim Our Schools Organizing Training February 8, 2020 9:00 AM - 2:00 PM at CASA De Maryland, 8151 15th Ave, Hyattsville, MD 20783 Sign Up Now

The Maryland General Assembly has filed over 1,000 bills and scheduled hearings on many important progressive measures.

Here’s a roundup of legislative alerts and details from social justice allies.

The pipeline for appointing local political activists to fill Assembly vacancies is getting a side-eye – from Assembly members.
Requiring special elections to fill Assembly vacancies occurring in the first half of a four-year term is gaining traction as the public becomes skeptical about the insider behavior of local central committees and the instant power of unelected incumbency.
Maryland Matters reports on a bipartisan bill, cross-filed in both chambers.

As progressives gear up for advocacy during the General Assembly session – now in its third week – our allies are proposing issue agendas close to ours. Check out the work of the Maryland Legislative Coalition and The Job Opportunities Task Force/Working Matters keeping us focused on the non-trivial proposals among the growing number of bills being filed. Read on...

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose revered memory may hit us most sharply today, was one of us.

In his breakthrough 1967 Riverside Church address in which he overtly opposed the Vietnam War, he confessed “Over the past two years, … I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences”. …  Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one’s own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexing as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty.”

We can all be paralyzed by such doubt and fear. Dr. King showed us that a true “revolution of values” requires a radical departure from those concerns. Richard Eskow makes some informed speculations how King’s uncompromising realism would see the challenges since his death in 1968.

Progressive Maryland legislators, worker organizations and economists in the Maryland Fair Funding Coalition are backing a package of tax reform bills that could increase state revenue by $1 billion and make the state's tax system more equitable. This account from Maryland Matters has the details.

In the Progressive Maryland Memo today: General Assembly launch and info, education, health care, Progressive Maryland is hiring, February training, and more.

The Assembly session is under way, and already 200-plus bills have been filed. Here’s a heads-up from the Maryland Legislative Coalition on hearings this week, plus lots more.

Much-studied and much-delayed, a light rail option to end the commuter nightmare for Southern Maryland's three counties needs to be moved from the bottom of the state priority list.

Now.

Sen. Arthur Ellis demands relief, declares that Charles, Calvert and St. Mary's counties are being treated "like a toilet" by MDOT planners.

The Maryland General Assembly begins its three-month session with formal openings today (January 8). When we look at the list of issues that many analysts say will top the agenda of this 2020 General Assembly session, we get the itchy feeling that one sentence could clear away some of the confusion.

“Stop bad jobs; start good jobs.”

Welcome to 2020, to the first Memo of 2020, and whoa! here comes the 2020 Maryland General Assembly session barreling around the bend with an ETA of this Wednesday (January 8). Learn how to keep up with events and navigate the three-month session with Progressive Maryland's help (and that of several nonprofit news sources you'll want to know about).