The portal of 2022 brings the expectable array of good news (minimum wage increase!), sordid news (Larry Hogan’s messaging stays undercover while his admin’s Covid response and miserable unemployment comp process (don’t trust the process!) get eyeballed unfavorably—plus unpleasant vibes around rising Covid numbers statewide reflecting national trends. Here’s what we’ve got, progressive Marylanders…

Find out more about what you can do in today's Progressive Maryland Weekly Memo.

The Weekly Memo is taking a week off, but we don't want you to miss important news that concerns progressive activists -- and struggling working families in Maryland -- that fall in the hammock between Christmas and New Year's.

Local special elections; inequities in how to get federal money (it's an art!); Maryland's gains in diversity; Maryland COVID data returns from ransomware exile; and more.

A reminder: we swipe a lot of our news coverage throughout the year from the nonprofit news sites Maryland Matters and Maryland Reporter. They deserve your support in this giving time. As Maryland taxpayers you are already supporting the nationally acclaimed Capital News Service at UM's Merrill College of Journalism, where skilled student reporters provide statewide coverage that's used by many of our local papers across the state.

Progressive Maryland's Membership Assembly is Saturday, January 8 and we'll build momentum for the legislative session and a busy 2022. See more below.

Happy holidays from all of us at Progressive Maryland! We look forward to continuing our work with you in the new year.

After an event-filled weekend, is the big story Joe M or O-EM Chron -- Maryland sees a spike in cases while Larry Hogan preens on Fox News Sunday with a "What, me worry?" while our West VA neighbor Sen. Joe Roadblock attempts an on-air bill kill, upstaging Hogan for Fox airtime.

Dems scramble to reset the Build Back Better bill for passage while alternately scorching the earth around Manchin only to be reminded he lives on a yacht ("houseboat") in the Potomac.

Cases climb in our state but there's a giant surplus to spend; good news about e-vehicles and support...

Political scientist David Lublin, who hosts the long-running blog Seventh State, has a look at the state of play among the two major parties in Maryland. In blogs posted late last week and today, he runs down the changes and shifting political loyalties of Marylanders across this very diverse state.

Veto overrides were the big news out of Annapolis last week -- Last week’s Special Legislative Session had both some exciting and disheartening outcomes. While some crucial bills had successful veto overrides, other important legislation was tabled indefinitely - essentially meaning it was taken off the table entirely. Read below to learn more about the veto overrides we are celebrating and why there is much more work to be done in the 2022 Session in hopes to make up for some truly disappointing losses this year. 

Speaking of 2022, election campaigns are well underway and there are plenty of opportunities to get involved with progressive candidates! This and much more in the memo.

A forest of veto override activity "in Annapolis" contrasts sharply with continued gridlock in DC -- though a few flowers are blooming amid the carnage. We round up what has been going on in these seats of power and how progressives can work to forward good things in both. A summary of this post with a link to the full package appears in this week's Monday Memo from Progressive Maryland, one of the oases in the news desert.

A Prince George's resident writes: "I was appalled on Nov. 16, 2021, as I watched the Prince George’s County Council approve the Davis/Franklin map (CR-123-2021) for the new Prince George’s County redistricting lines. I watched the session late into the night as over 100 people spoke against CR-123-2021 and NO ONE spoke in favor of it (over 150 people had signed up to speak but not all of them were able to stay on the line for hours and hours).

"I was shocked that the council could so blatantly ignore the will of Prince George’s residents.

"What has also been shocking is the silence from our county executive, Angela Alsobrooks."

Here's the Weekly Memo with what activists and working families need to navigate this dizzying week in Annapolis and DC.

New legislative districts for Maryland and overrides (maybe) of a lot of good bills vetoed by Larry Hogan after this spring’s session are on the table for this brief, intense week. Important measures to ease the lives of working people – better mass transit, more accountability for law enforcement, criminal justice and decarceration, collective bargaining, climate justice and a better response to COVID. And about the feds– important stakes for Build Back Better, voting rights, the debt ceiling and other critical needs held hostage to each other in gridlock land. How to budge them? Find out here...

Maryland politics are, for a change, more exciting than those in Washington, D.C. That’s because the General Assembly has only a week to wrap a lot of business with fewer chances to kick the can down the road, compared to Congress, which would be equally exciting issues-wise if the very big stakes were not buried in the small-time, venal behavior of the near-deadlocked chambers.

New legislative districts for Maryland and overrides (maybe) of a lot of good bills vetoed by Larry Hogan after this spring’s session are on the table for this brief, intense week. Important measures to ease the lives of working people – better mass transit, more accountability for law enforcement, criminal justice and decarceration, collective bargaining, climate justice and a better response to COVID. 

And about the feds– While the MD General Assembly begins its sudden-death scuffle over redistricting and veto overrides today, the grind in DC goes on, with Build Back Better, the debt ceiling, voter rights and other critical needs holding one another hostage courtesy of rules that shouldn’t have survived the 19th Century. We’ll have a brisk summary from People’s Action in their every-Monday PA weekly forecast, plus what to do as activist individuals to make your collective voices heard. Find it all here, but don't miss the opportunities for activism in the Weekly Memo as well, coming to your inbox today.