(Photo Credit: Kate Ryan WTOP)

In a major victory for organizations demanding solutions from the Maryland General Assembly to address the looming eviction crisis on Friday August 14th, a letter from the Maryland Attorney General lays out a pathway for the General Assembly to reconvene.

In the absence of any leadership from state government, top Assembly leaders and county/city school superintendents work to plan how to safely create school environments -- in-school or remote -- and what they need to make the school systems both safe and effective. Their list of needs is long and the response from the Hogan administration and state schools officials sounds suspiciously like crickets. These two accounts describe a thoughtful encounter Thursday (Aug. 13) between two state Senate leaders and three school superintendents (and readers of the BlogSpace can stream the whole discussion) as well as an opinion piece earlier this week by Sen. Paul Pinsky, who chairs the Senate education panel and was one of the participants. Pinsky lays out the concerns raised by the health emergency and some practices that might make a difference.

Progressive Maryland joined activist groups representing workers, tenants, immigrants, parents, students and others who pledged on Wednesday to ramp up their campaign to bring the Maryland General Assembly back to Annapolis for a special session. This article from Maryland Matters outlines our campaign.

These times demand that our elected representatives take decisive action to aid the people of our state.

However this is not happening. Hard-pressed Marylanders increasingly call on the General Assembly to reconvene for a special session to address our current crisis. Our executive director, Larry Stafford Jr., weighs the options here and explains why today, Progressive Maryland is joining with 70 labor, faith, and community organizations in the demand for a special session of the Maryland General Assembly. 

Progressive Maryland "has launched a program to train and educate potential candidates for office and other political advocates " as we see in this article from Maryland Matters, the insightful statewide political blog. The site's founder/editor, longtime state political observer Josh Kurtz, outlined the plan and the people in an article posted yesterday (Monday, Aug. 10).

An eviction crisis is looming. Even folks who give housing their full-time attention feel they may not know how bad the coming wave of evictions will be, in Maryland and everywhere that the expiration of the $600 top-off on unemployment insurance tips families from scrambling into desperation. We need an end to evictions and cancellations of rent. What pressure points can we lean on to get action? We have suggestions below. That and lots more in PM's Weekly Memo, your go-to source for progressive action in Maryland.

Gov. Larry Hogan continues to flounder as a leader in Maryland while decked out in high, hyped ratings in the rest of the country -- fueled by his relentless book tour and his ubiquity on the cable shows.

Meanwhile he's responding to national GOP dog whistles on school openings (for the privileged) and scare tactics on a safe mail-in vote.

These are critical moments as Congress fumbles a foundation for working families' recovery, there's nobody in charge of quelling the pandemic, and Gov. Hogan resists the evidence that mail-in voting is the way to ensure everyone in Maryland's ability to vote in November.
We have tools for action at every level in this Monday's Memo. Build power, take charge.

Everyone who knows anything about risk management during a statewide election is urging Gov. Larry Hogan to reverse course and plan a mail-in election with limited in-person voting, as was done with the recent primary elections. They got together to say so yesterday, as this Maryland Matters account relates.

Hogan, instead, doesn't know anything (or chooses not to know) about risk management in an election and instead is following the time-honored election practices -- which instead favor Republicans, not working families -- backed by the corporate, Chamber of Commerce types whose support he needs to compete for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. Hogan is currently flogging his new book, which explicitly speculates about his opportunities in 2024.

Take Action: The GOP Senate is low-balling critical stimulus needs to keep working people afloat -- instead they want to drive workers back to unsafe jobs. See more below, and act as well to get Larry Hogan off his book tour and on the job, reversing course and giving Marylanders a safe mail-in election not a confusing barrage of absentee ballot requests. Plus chapter news, health care and transit still on the table and our recent blog posts -- all in the Monday Memo.