The Kirwan Commission (education reform) is still working out the funding formula for sharing new costs for reforms that member Sen. Paul Pinsky says "will be the envy of all 50 states" ... but the delay allows Gov. Hogan and his legislative henchmen to put off questions of money for this 2019 Assembly session -- they think.

However, "the commission is pressing forward with a proposal that puts the new blueprint in place this year, spends at least $200 million and, hopefully, $325 million this coming year, as a down-payment, and sets a requirement that $1.5 billion, the amount originally proposed to be spent this year, is guaranteed in next year’s state budget," Pinsky declares in this post, which originally appeared Dec. 28 in Maryland Matters.

Racial discrimination in the Prince George's Police Department is discouraging the reporting of abuse committed by PGPD officers because Latinx and Black officers in the department experience retaliation for speaking out about it, spurring a lawsuit. New leadership in the county must take firm steps to enable full compliance and accountability in the department in order to end abuse of citizens by police.

Progressive Maryland’s Dec. 29 Statewide Meeting in Annapolis hosted nearly 200 progressive activists. We connected and re-energized after a draining midterm campaign; we met in breakout groups by local chapters; and we also broke out and strategized around issue campaigns. Read more in the first Memo of 2019.

Democratic candidates are beginning to cascade into the 2020 presidential race at an accelerating pace. On New Year's Eve Sen. Elizabeth Warren was the latest to form an "exploratory committee" and others will doubtless do so soon, for visibility and fund-raising reasons. Lower Shore Progressive Caucus chair Jared Schablein ticks off the reasons that getting caught up in the madness too soon means we will be taking our eyes off the prize locally, where important work needs to be done and where local politicians are hoping you will not watch them too closely. He speaks for the Lower Shore but every jurisdiction in Maryland should take heed.

Welcome to the last Weekly Memo of 2018. Our Statewide Meeting in Annapolis this Saturday, Dec. 29 will kick off 2019 on the good foot – prepping for a highly interesting General Assembly session beginning January 9 and rolling on from there to mobilize working families and activists across the state. Be there; RSVP here.

As the Kirwan Commission (“Innovation and Excellence in Education”) soldiered its way to completion of both policy and funding goals in nearly two years of hard work, the state’s leadership totally failed to do its part – both the Democratic-dominated Assembly and Larry Hogan’s executive branch blanched at the cost of doing the right thing by the state’s students and told the commissioners to, um, continue their work.

Few reporters in the state have devoted more effort to following the commission’s work than Len Lazarick, editor of the online Maryland Reporter. Here he outlines in an account headlined “Legislative leaders shelve new funding another year” the sorry performance of state leaders.

What others are calling a "just transition" to a new and planet-saving energy regime MUST include everyone involved, including impacted workers and frontline populations in so-called "sacrifice zones." And, as People's Action writer-activist Ben Ishibashi here implies but doesn't explore, any corporate engagement in the green economy has to be public-managed so resources and advantages do not bleed off to Wall Street's casino, big banks and the stock buyback frenzy.

 MISTLETOE MEMO EDITION – be sure to give a nod to the Solstice on Dec. 21 as the Shortest Day goes by. Our next Memo will be the eve of the traditional holiday, Monday, Dec. 24 – but don’t forget to get yourself ready for the Statewide Progressive Maryland meeting, coming up…. More in this week's Memo, below...

The rehabbing of the cozy confines of Lawyer’s Mall, the traditional Annapolis location for demonstrations in front of the State House – where legislators need to pass by and view the festivities on their way to chambers and session – means protestors will have to locate elsewhere during at least the 2019 General Assembly session. Poland, hosting the latest climate summit, passed laws restricting protests and keeping them distant from the summit’s meetings; guess somebody was paying attention in the Hogan administration. Maryland Matters' Danielle Gaines has the details here.

People’s Action director George Goehl shows how deep the electorate’s concern for health care provision is across the country – and how many GOP incumbents paid the price in the midterms for dissing the Affordable Care Act. The traction for “Medicare for All” in Maryland didn’t translate into a win at the top, we know—but that may be because the number of Marylanders without health coverage is at an historic low, with around 94 percent having some kind of coverage. But we still have to make it good coverage and keep for-profit providers focused on care, not stock prices.