Welcome to the Weekly Memo, with news of a terrific launch for the Anne Arundel Chapter, chapter meetings this week in MoCo and PGCo and ongoing tasks and opportunities including the new workspace around healthcare following a certain big-time implosion last week.

Progressive Maryland will join other activist groups spearheading a "Die-In" Saturday at the Governor's mansion to protest Larry Hogan's minimal effort to protect Marylanders' health care coverage from his GOP buddies in Congress and the White House. "Certainly, Marylanders did not expect to have a governor who would abandon us like this,” activist leader Yasemin Jamison said.

A survey by the MDDC Press Association of city and county websites throughout Maryland found many fall short in providing minimum useful information to citizens in search of same.

Maryland, a wealthy state, is in the bottom tenth of states at providing reimbursement for child care expenses so low-income working families can afford decent child care while adults work. Proressive Maryland testifies today in favor of a bill that would require the state to monitor and adjust its rate to help working families provide a good environment for their children.

In the Weekly Memo: some victories in Annapolis as the Assembly hits the home stretch; chapter meetings on the horizon and links to the most recent blog posts.

A bill allowing sales tax exemptions for Boy Scouts -- but not other nonprofit youth groups -- discriminates in favor of theists over non-theists, violating the constitutional separation of Church and State, argues Mathew Goldstein of SecularMaryland.org

Veteran state political commentator Barry Rascovar observes "Should 2018 turn into a 'message' election, Larry Hogan’s 'good guy' image and Marylanders’ lack of animus toward him may prove all but worthless. He could well become, for state voters, Donald Trump’s surrogate on the ballot."

Are Democrats slip-sliding back in the centrist, old-boy direction that has brought us Larry Hogan? Hal Ginsberg suspects that the choice of Kathleen Matthews as state party chair, clearly at the behest of top elected power brokers like Hoyer, Cardin and Van Hollen, indicates just that problem for the party. Where will progressives go instead?

Bills in the General Assembly would mobilize Maryland's response to the dangers to the state's health systems that are posed by the "repeal and replace" catastrophe in Congress. Progressive Maryland testified on the bills recently.

In the Weekly Memo this week: movement in Annapolis on both the earned sick leave bill (almost to the finish line!) and the state $15 minimum wage. Also calendar musts for this week and links to our most recent blog posts.