Welcome to the Progressive Maryland Weekly Memo for Monday, April 9 to Monday, April 16 (and beyond). This is the full version of the Memo. If you subscribe to the email version of the Memo you get a trim, brief and easy to scan version with plenty of links leading you to the information you want (you can sign up to get that every week here.)

The Assembly's Legislative Black Caucus has strongly opposed SB 122, a supposed crime reform bill that brings us back to the days of harsh penalties, mandatory minimum sentences and hyper-empowered prosecutors. Tell your delegates that it shouldn't get passed in the House.

Monday April 16, tell the Prince George’s County Council: Our Community deserves clean air, clean water and safe streets! We oppose building a CONCRETE BATCHING PLANT across from the Bladensburg Waterfront Park in Bladensburg, MD.

Progressive Maryland continues to oppose the provisions of Senate Bill 122, a so-called omnibus crime bill that wraps some funding sweeteners together with Draconian sentencing requirements making Maryland’s already oppressive system of mandatory minimum sentences even worse. It needs to be opposed on the floor of Maryland’s House of Delegates, and by voters throughout the state.

The PROGRESSIVE MARYLAND WEEKLY MEMO FOR APRIL 2-9 with canvassing, movement politics, statewide chapter action, allies calendar, links to this week's blog posts and more. This is the full version; the emailed Weekly Memo is trim and easy to scan with links to full accounts. BTW you can sign up for that here.

Sen. Bernie Sanders has a spotty endorsement record, with clear instances where he has overlooked solid pro-union, economic justice candidates like Conor Lamb in Pennsylvania but picked a number of people who checked all the progressive boxes but didn't get across the finish line.

Successful candidates, Hal Ginsberg argues, will champion unions and job protection, and forswear corporate contributions.

MoCo executive Ike Leggett proposes to have stormwater runoff managed through public-private partnerships. Do these have the juice to make the Bay cleaner?

Anne Arundel activist Claire Miller observes "As a very smart 12-year-old said to a journalist recently, on my own I may not be able to change anything but with all of these people, we can definitely make change happen." Solidarity is changing the political terrain, significantly.

Progressive Maryland and many other progressive organizations are strongly opposed to SB122, a bill being heard in committee TODAY, March 27. SB122 gives prosecutors excessive tools to lock up defendants and increases prison time in a racially biased way, including the creation of mandatory minimum sentences focused on the kind of drug offenses that are disproportionately charged against minorities. Defendants under SB122 would have far fewer rights in their defense. There are no protections against police misconduct.

You can fight back against this unjust proposal. Sign our petition at  http://www.progressivemaryland.org/stop_passage_of_sb_122 and follow it by sharing on social media. On Twitter, use HashTag  #MDAgainstSB122.

This is the full version of the Progressive Maryland Weekly Memo for March 26-April 2. The emailed memo is shorter but links to this one.