Acting locally lets us touch the people we are affecting, HoCo activist Dave Bazell notes.  And it allows them to touch us.  And this feedback is essential in getting it right.  Which is not to say activism on a national level is not important or essential, it is just harder.  Harder to comprehend, harder to organize, harder to feel the immediate benefits of.

The struggle to get big money out of Maryland politics, at all levels, has gone on for many years. Still, the fact remains that big money – money from the wealthy, especially from big businesses doing business with the state or depending on state regulation to make them profitable, or from national and global corporations – pollutes the politics of Maryland. Here is news of progress on two fronts.

Canvass for Progressive Maryland’s candidates and issues – the June Primary is coming up and voters need to get their feet under them for this critical set of choices. You can help by speaking to your neighbors. And we'll be at hearings and rallies in Annapolis to keep Maryland on the right track for working families, not for the wealthy.

Baltimore's Job Opportunities Task Force released today (Feb. 1) a major study showing that Maryland's official practices in many areas have a disparate impact on poor Marylanders, aggravate their poverty and make an exit from poverty more difficult. Progressive Maryland, like JOTF, has been advocating on these issues for years.

Progressive Maryland and other organizations testified Jan. 24 at a hearing on Senate Bill 195, called a “combined reporting” bill, before the Maryland Senate Budget and Tax Committee.

 Jennifer Dwyer, Policy and Legislative Director for Progressive Maryland, explained our support for the bill: By deftly deploying their presence in other states, some major companies doing business in Maryland have historically been able to avoid or greatly reduce their state income taxes compared to the benefits that they get from doing business in a wealthy state.

The Assembly is in session, elections are approaching and our work is percolating in Annapolis and throughout the state as we contact voters about a progressive agenda for change and people’s empowerment.

Join an informational meeting TONIGHT (Thursday, Jan. 25) on the prospects for a Small-Donor Public Financing program for county elections, sponsored by the Prince George’s Sierra Club and the Fair Elections Maryland Coalition.

PMD Montgomery member Liz Dueweke notes that there are two proposals for remedying the affordable housing crunch in MoCo, and sets the landscape of need that both try to tackle.

This handy reference was prepared by the Public Justice Center and circulated by Working Matters Maryland (part of the Job Opportunities Task Force), both of whom fought for more than four Assembly sessions to get this passed (and affirmed with a veto override this session after it was vetoed in 2017 by Gov. Larry Hogan).This version was updated with new information January 25.

 More information on the Healthy Working Families Act and about Public Justice Center is here. Pass this along to anyone you know who may need information about their workplace rights under this new law.

We are ramping up for the first of our monthly Progressive Maryland mass canvasses to build support for a popular reversal of business as usual at the polls. Progressive Maryland trains canvassers and runs canvasses that get results – bringing more responsive public officials and fewer, well, politicians. To find out more, join our canvasses. June 26 is coming, and the political earthquake is building. Don’t get gamed.