Working families have always been the heart and soul of Maryland and the nation. Former Governor Larry Hogan repeatedly vetoed critical legislation and attacked unions in actions set against improving the lives of workers and their families. As a wealthy real estate developer and a corporate Republican, Hogan has sided again and again with the interests of large businesses and the ultra-wealthy, who are pouring millions of dollars into his campaign. If Hogan were to give control of the US Senate to the Republican Party of Mitch McConnell and Ted Cruz, it would be a disaster not just for Marylanders but for working families across the country.

Maryland’s Fight for 15 coalition, which included nonprofit civic and union organizations, organized to adopt a strong $15 minimum wage for lower-income and middle class families. In 2019, the state legislature passed an important (albeit comprise) bill to slowly increase the state minimum wage to $15. Hogan defiantly vetoed the legislation. But we fought back and Democrats in the state legislature overrode Hogan’s veto, enacting the new minimum wage increases, which the National Employment Law Project estimated would benefit more than 570,000 Maryland workers earning less than $15 per hour.

"Larry Hogan could tip the balance in the U.S. Senate and drag us back to a dark time when bailouts and tax cuts went to corporations instead of working families and income inequality broke new records as the top 1% pulled further ahead,” said Jaime Contreras, Executive Vice President of 32BJ SEIU. The Fight for 15-coalition member is the nation’s largest property services union that represents over 11,000 members in Maryland among over 174,000 along the East Coast. “The last thing we need is a Republican-controlled Senate cutting the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security that are lifelines for so many Americans, including children and seniors"

Yet the minimum wage story didn’t end there. In the middle of 2020, at the beckoning of the same business groups that sought to block the law, Hogan’s corporate allies used the pretext of the Covid crisis to seek to delay implementation of the meager 60 to 75 cents per hour annual increase for two years, just when our essential workers needed and deserved the additional income for their families the most.

And during Covid in 2020, as businesses laid off workers, Hogan failed hundreds of thousands of Marylanders who were desperately seeking unemployment assistance with people waiting over 30 hours on the phone just to talk to someone while online systems were completely broken. Then in 2021, to add insult to injury, Hogan cut off supplemental unemployment assistance of $300 per week for more than 175,000 Marylanders. This cruel action was blocked by our state’s highest court.

In 2017, Hogan vetoed an earned sick leave bill requiring workers to be given five paid sick days per year. With Hogan lobbying hard against the law, Marylanders as part of the Working Matters Coalition worked with Maryland state Democrats to override Hogan’s veto. We won against the no holds opposition of Hogan and his business lobbyists. The law now provides earned sick leave to more than 480,000 Maryland workers, and it provides unpaid sick leave to more than 200,000 workers at small businesses.

Continuing to put his big business friends above working families, in 2022, Hogan vetoed the establishment of a paid family and medical leave insurance program to provide Marylanders 12 weeks of partially paid family leave each year to care for themselves or a loved one after a serious health issue and up to 24 weeks of paid leave for new parents. Yet again, Maryland nonprofits and their constituents organized, this time through the Time to Care coalition, to override and defeat Hogan’s callous veto against working families.

Moreover, Hogan attacked our unions during these legislative fights and separately in contract negotiations. Hogan called the state’s leading union for teachers “thugs.” He repeatedly tried to freeze pay for state workers, to weaken collective bargaining and even cut hazard pay for state workers during the Covid epidemic.

Hogan will attempt to hide and deny his record around these kitchen table issues, just as he suddenly announced himself “pro-choice” despite vetoing legislation and withholding funds to expand access to abortion care throughout the state. However, he won’t get away with it, because nonprofit groups like ours know the truth. We were there fighting Hogan’s vetoes and attacks along with state legislative leaders. Together with public support, we won important economic support for hundreds of thousands of Marylanders but we had to do it over Hogan’s strong opposition.

Larry Hogan is not on the side of working families and we know that a US Senate controlled by Republicans not only would not improve the lives of America’s working families but would actively seek to undermine workers and unions to make things worse. Marylanders deserve a US Senate that will work to help not harm working families.