As the state begins its patchy and sometimes risky emergence from stay-home orders and business shutdowns, Progressive Maryland continues its work to humanize the state response and demand that working families don’t get sacrificed to the needs of the ownership class—or to “justice” gone bad.

We are fighting for transformational change in policing, for decarceration, for better state government response to the needs of the state’s over 20 percent unemployed, and for relief for the many who can’t afford to meet rent or mortgage payments to the few. Plus reports from our increasingly active chapters around the state, and our recent blog posts. Read on in the Memo. Note correction to Prince George's Chapter meeting; email Memo is in error.

Progressive Maryland Weekly Memo for Monday June 15 2020

As the state begins its patchy and sometimes risky emergence from stay-home orders and business shutdowns, Progressive Maryland continues its work to humanize the state response and demand that working families don’t get sacrificed to the needs of the ownership class—or to “justice” gone bad.

We are fighting for transformational change in policing, for decarceration, for better state government response to the needs of the state’s over 20 percent unemployed, and for relief for the many who can’t afford to meet rent or mortgage payments to the few. Plus reports from our increasingly active chapters around the state, and our recent blog posts. Read on in the Memo.

SOLIDARITY WITH THE MOVEMENT FOR BLACK LIVES

 “As a racial, social, economic and environmental justice organization, Progressive Maryland has a responsibility to our Black members and supporters to loudly speak out against anti-Blackness and affirm our support in the Movement for Black Lives,” said Progressive Maryland Executive Director Larry Stafford in a release this week. Read more about the principles that Progressive Maryland shares with the Movement for Black Lives in the full release here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Kq4xfBnWKgVfKEF444lsPUYywFSSkRVpCgOJaaMusuE/

Join us – at our statewide Justice Task Force meeting Thursday, June 18, 5:30-7:30 PM – RSVP at https://secure.everyaction.com/sv_jC7xoA023kGLp_N6F9A2

END THE UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE FIASCO -- This Wednesday, June 17, tell Hogan and his Labor Secretary to fix the state’s broken unemployment insurance system, which is keeping money out of the pockets of many who deserve it. Follow the link: https://www.facebook.com/events/1178952222441949/

And join us in a peaceful demonstration, where we raise public awareness of the Department of Labor's negligence and demand change from Governor Larry Hogan and Labor Secretary Tiffany Robinson. It’s 11 AM to 1 PM at the Labor Department, 1100 N. Eutaw St. in Baltimore.
Please invite your Legislators! Here is a template you can use. Tell them what happened to you when you tried to get through.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xvzjINBKSYD7MlO9wrpU-KIl8Rkzgq_DVc33mMyAov4/edit?usp=sharing
If you aren't sure who your legislators are here is a link to help you. mdelect.net

STATE COVID-19 RESPONSE ROUND UP

Progressive Maryland continues to fight for the financial response and full protections ALL Marylanders require during the pandemic and will need in the months to come as we contend with the health and economic crisis we’re experiencing.

Providing relief and resources to renters has been a major plank of our COVID-19 response platform. Here’s a re-cap of activities from the past several weeks:

On May 1 and June 1, we co-hosted  #CancelTheRent Town Hall events. The Governor was invited but did not accept the invitation to the June event where people shared stories about the hardships they’re facing.  We will continue to call on him to take action to support Marylanders. Neighboring states like Pennsylvania have committed tens of millions of CARE dollars in rent relief but the state of Maryland has not made any kind of financial commitment to help tens of thousands of renters who are out of work and trying to make ends meet—this is urgent, we need relief!

Please add your voice and sign the petition for housing protections:

https://secure.everyaction.com/WHPRHZXOpkSi3iIee5iCOg2 

Local city and county councils are acting on the need for renter aid and protection. In Salisbury, the City Council passed an ordinance drafted by Mayor Jake Day that bars rent increases during the COVID state of emergency and authorizes the Mayor to issue executive orders as are necessary to protect tenants from abuse.

In Anne Arundel County, a Renter’s Emergency Relief bill is being re-drafted and should be introduced soon. Stay tuned for updates.

Baltimore City, Howard, Anne Arundel, Montgomery and Prince Georges Counties have all enacted aid programs and/or limits on rent increases. Baltimore County has just launched a program that is a start to providing financial assistance to folks who are struggling to pay monthly and back rent. Check your county’s website or speak to your Council members to learn more about what your county or city is doing.                                      

We continue to push for more Federal action, especially in the U.S. Senate and particularly as it relates to extending health care coverage to everyone in our country who needs it, boosting economic and housing aid to individuals and states, and allocating the level of funding states will need to support a mail-in voting system for the general election.

State COVID-19 Calls transition to Local and Task Force Calls

We appreciate the scores of folks who joined us for some important and moving statewide COVID response zoom calls in April and May. We will be back later in the summer with another statewide general membership call AND in the meantime our members can stay active in our organizing work by joining a local chapter or an issue task force. Please check the updates from our local organizers in this memo to learn more.  Our issue task forces will start meeting regularly, including this Thursday, June 18, when the Justice Task Force (see top entry) has an important call and next Thursday June 25 when our Health Care Task Force will convene. Read more about our statewide agenda calls in this recent blog post Statewide calls build menu of progressive issues to advance working families’ interests

• Sign up for our weekly memo. You can also submit a blog post for the memo by contacting Woody at [email protected]. We are very interested in collecting stories about the impact of COVID-19 on individuals, workers and families. Get our weekly updates here. 

• Hear more about Progressive Maryland’s statewide organizing efforts related to the consequences of the pandemic. Email Patty Snee at [email protected].

PROGRESSIVE MARYLAND – OUR CHAPTERS AROUND THE STATE

Progressive Prince George’s 

Progressive Prince George's Chapter Meeting: Thursday, July 16 5:30 PM – the agenda is likely to include the Justice Task Force/Returning Citizens Project; AROS-education reform; and the work to reform term limits in the county. RSVP here https://secure.everyaction.com/mWXYqq_Uz061Fol3_Findw2

PMD Montgomery

Frederick County Progressives

Take Action Anne Arundel County

Talbot Rising

Lower Shore Progressive Caucus

PMD Baltimore

The Baltimore City chapter of Progressive Maryland held its inaugural chapter meeting this past Thursday, and we had a great turnout for our first meeting. Over 20 community members and leaders came together to share their thoughts about and triumphs during the primary, as well the exciting work that our chapter has planned for the rest of the year. Rashi Turniansky, our point person for training, spent a few minutes talking about our upcoming skills training programs (tentatively named “Guerilla University”), and we also had a short explanation on the importance of vote-by-mail from Jake Carlo, our chapter’s phonebank captain.

The Baltimore City chapter will be holding its monthly chapter meetings every 2nd Thursday of the month; our next meeting will be on July 9th from 6-7:30 PM. – Malcolm Heflin

>>Baltimore progressives, Check in on the wide-ranging Baltimore Activist Alert calendar and tip sheet at http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/

Reading the Progressive Maryland BlogSpace: our recent blogs are shown below, but if you want a handy way to keep track – and never miss a blog post – you can sign up to get this Weekly Memo by email. Remember this is your blogspace and your participation is heartily invited. See something going on that you don’t like – or that you do like and hope to see more of? Send us your thoughts; submit to the moderator at [email protected]

We recently published these blog posts:

June 11, 2020 Hogan's failure on unemployment payments blasted by workers, lawmakers

Gov. Larry Hogan is getting plenty of flak on the many areas where his administration has failed to meet the challenge of the COVID-19 virus in Maryland.

Both out-of-work Marylanders and their representatives in Congress are bringing the heat on Hogan’s lagging Labor Department and slow or no unemployment compensation payments.

Wednesday June 17 Maryland workers will unite in protest against the state's broken unemployment system.

June 10, 2020 We are angry. We have demands. Join us to make a better world

Ahmaud Arbery

Breonna Taylor

George Floyd

Nina Pop

Tony McDade 

We are angry. We are hurt. We are grieving. We are fighting. And we won’t stop saying their names. We are calling on everyone to join our critical fight for racial justice and Black lives.

June 08, 2020 Progressive Maryland Weekly Memo -- elections, protests, anger, grief. Monday, June 8, 2020

Elections are an important part of organizing – though there’s more to it than that, of course. But elections get people moving and show how power can be built, voter by voter, person by person. And progressives can win. See below for our winners in Baltimore, MoCo, the Lower Shore and Prince George's. And for the "more to it than that" part, read on for chapter meetings in Baltimore and MoCo, responding to protests (Larry Hogan as bad example) and how history comes along and makes demands, ready or not, on us. Plus COVID-19 response, chapter news and our recent blog posts -- all in the Monday Memo.

June 03, 2020 Statewide calls build menu of progressive issues to advance working families’ interests

Elections, as we say, come and go, but revolutions are continuous.

The way that paradox plays out is clear today, after the June 2 election. Although progressives won some, and lost some, the progressive needle moved in a positive direction in numerous Maryland jurisdictions.

Our issues are constants, and continue to be the building blocks of our campaigns -- and the way we measure our officials when they take office and we engage in co-governance with them.

Even as folks around the world and right here in Maryland struggled to cope with COVID-19 in all the ways we live, Progressive Maryland and Marylanders United, along with activists from across the state, have focused on critical issues of health care, housing, education, voting in a pandemic and prison reform/decarceration in our series of weekly Zoom events. Find out how that went here, as we look back and ahead.

>REMEMBER – these blog posts are frequently expressions of political opinion from our wide-ranging membership and circle of allies. They are not expressions of opinion by Progressive Maryland. Don’t be surprised if they sometimes vary in their political content. You might even disagree with them – a good reason to contribute a blog of your own. Send it to the moderator, Woody Woodruff, at [email protected].

>>Keeping up with the blogs is easier with the index. The blogs published in the PM BlogSpace from June 2015 through December 2016 are all available with descriptions and links here. You can follow blogs for 2017-18 starting from here