There’s a lot going on in Maryland right now. While the new cannabis legalization law won't go into effect until July, small possession of cannabis is no longer subject to criminal penalties as of the new year. In addition, the Maryland Medical Assistance Program and the Water Assistance Relief Program have launched and we encourage you to share this information with anyone you know. And in just two days, the Maryland General Assembly will convene as the legislative session will officially begin and last until April 12th. 

We can always count on the new year to introduce an abundance of changes in our personal lives and our state's political status. It’s a crucial time for us and our allies to prepare for the legislative session and garner support for any bills that will help fight for progressive change in Maryland and improve the lives of the working class people in our community. In the 90 days of the legislative session, we will be working persistently to achieve numerous progressive victories. As a reminder, you can view our preliminary 2023 Legislative Agenda here. 

Let's keep organizing and mobilizing against the injustice we face in our communities and across our nation. 

Maryland and other legislatures buckle down to their agendas for 2023; Covid hasn't gone away and MD hospitals filling fast; new faces in state government; Federal money and how to get it, and the Bay gets straight D+ grades. News you can use even if it's not all good, here courtesy Maryland's tireless progressive watchdogs at Progressive Maryland. Read on, and give in to the urge to take organized action.

Happy New Year! We’re excited to get 2023 off to a great start and—after ending 2022 with some historical victories—make this one of our best years yet! We’re kicking off this new year by gearing up for the upcoming legislative session which begins in just 8 days. Together we will continue our journey to creating a more equitable Maryland through our legislative advocacy pushes, community organizing, working with allies, and harnessing grassroots power.

We’re committed to holding our new and experienced elected officials accountable. We want to ensure that the legislature passes bills that make working class families the top priority. We will be fighting for important legislation in areas related to: criminal justice and police reform, drug policy, healthcare justice, economic justice, labor reform, affordable housing, environmental justice, education, democratic reform and more.

If you’re not already a Progressive Maryland member, we invite you to join today. Your membership powers our organization and helps shape our many task forces. Becoming a member is easy and flexible! We offer many membership levels and the option of choosing specific issue campaign interests. Please join our growing grassroots movement and help us influence what comes next in Maryland. Click here to view our membership page. If you join by January 31st, you will be eligible to attend our Annual Membership Assembly on February 4th (it only happens once a year!)

It's news you can use... since we last communicated, a big federal budget bill has been wrestled to the Floor and signed by the Prez, with long-running consequences. Congress is back and its leadership is being decided as we write (but maybe not quickly) and Maryland has a new "Trifecta" status and big plans to make the most of it. A lot has happened over the holiday hiatus, so sit back and soak it up, right here.

There’s an African Proverb that says: If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. That sentiment and wise offering is on our minds as we look back on significant election wins and big policy gains in 2022 and look ahead to the potential that 2023 holds. 

Together this year we’ve been able to go far thanks to our members, volunteers, and leaders! Working with all of you, our allies and affiliates, we’ve built more grassroots capacity and increased our impact in the Maryland General Assembly and at the ballot box. 

Now we need to go further! Maryland can make some bold moves to tackle the economic and environmental problems everyday folks are facing. The legislature and the Governor can push for the investments our state needs to strengthen state agencies, public schools, mass transit, healthcare services, and green jobs. But some corporate lobbyists and entrenched interests are already urging them to delay or scale back things like budget spending, action on climate, criminal justice reform, and investments in healthcare and childcare. And as we know, the needs of our communities can’t wait. 

We can defeat the corporate lobbyists and their messaging by building more power! We need to organize a large base of supporters who believe in putting people and working families first. This is the perfect time to get involved and help us organize! Save the date for our Annual Membership meeting on Saturday, January 28th and we’ll be sharing the location soon. If you are not already a member, please join our growing grassroots movement and help us influence what comes next in Maryland. 

As the year draws to a close, the Progressive Maryland Weekly Memo will go on hiatus till January but the News You Can Use blog may pop up now and then in the interim  -- if Maryland produces real news beyond awards ceremonies. Let's all resolve not to be ambushed when the General Assembly fires up its engines in early January, while we are recovering from the holidays. What they do affects our lives.

Today, some stories are coalescing around health care, energy concerns and the economics of living in Maryland. Plus there's what happens in D.C. It's all connected, and so must we be to survive. Read on, and take action when you can. That's why we are here and what we do, and we'll still be at it in the New Year. Join us.

As a new cohort of legislators joins the returning batch of Senators and Delegates who will formally assemble in January for the 2023 General Assembly session, lots of advice is passed out and some of it may be taken. Many assessments of the changes resulting from the 2022 elections are that the chambers moved slightly left, though the state's well-paid chorus of lobbyists will probably not be slow to try to get their hooks in all concerned.

Maryland Matters provides an account of the newbies and veterans mingling this week, plus a list of the new faces that progressive activists will want to learn and cultivate.

Maryland progressives:

We want to make the most of 2023 and the opportunity we have to build state and local power! We’ll be sharing our full legislative agenda for the upcoming session with you soon. No matter what, we know that we need more power to forge a more inclusive, just, and healthy Maryland. Specifically, by growing our numbers we have a better chance of winning the funding we need for: our public schools, expanded healthcare services, and environmental protection. Organized people are the best way to gain relief and a stronger voice for working-class Marylanders and everyone who needs affordable housing and greater economic security.

In short, we need an organizing revival and we hope that you’re here for it!

There are lots of ways to get involved, starting with a conversation with one of our volunteer leaders or staff. If you already know someone on the PM team gives us a call or send a text today and we’ll set up a time to talk. Or simply fill out this form.

People-powered organizing is picking up steam across the country! Some examples include the voters and volunteers who are mobilizing in Georgia for the special run-off U.S. Senate election tomorrow, the workers who are organizing unions across the country, the activists who are demanding that we keep our democracy safe, and tenants everywhere, including in our state, who are organizing to stop holiday evictions and rent increases.  

Be a part of it! 

Maryland legislators have better-than-average state gun safety regulations in place, but free-lance Second Amendment types may hope to get the Trump-addled Supreme Court to overturn them. So the Assembly will work to make them, er, bullet-proof against judicial meddling and make Marylanders safer.

The very expensive and very necessary package of public school enhancements called the Blueprint for Maryland's Future is getting some tweaks from an oversight board before being put into play. The General Assembly is being invited to take a look at some changes.

Women candidates won new gains in Maryland -- and the rest of the nation -- in the November elections. As we see, it was not accidental.

And more progressive News You Can Use for Monday, December 5, 2022. Read on.

We’re in touch this week with the deep gratitude we feel for our members, volunteers, supporters and leaders. We give thanks to you for being a part of Progressive Maryland, following our accomplishments, and investing in our work. As the holiday season begins to take off, now is the perfect time to take a breath and reflect on the true meaning of this season–giving. All of you have helped us make this a milestone election year in our state. We want to continue building on our accomplishments and, with your help, we can greatly extend our achievements. We ask that you support our organization this giving season as we’ll be spending the rest of the year planning our advocacy work for the upcoming legislative session, mapping out our powerbuilding efforts, talking to allies, and getting ready for events like our annual Membership meeting on January 28. Find out the depth and richness of our work in our Memo. Read on.

.

News You Can Use for a slow week between one holiday and the next. Keep your footing for Giving Tuesday, and consider if you like your fresh water to stay fresh, how guaranteed income is working out in Charm City, how SWAT teams for voter fraud flopped, and Congress with one eye on the calendar more than ever.

We’re in touch this week with the deep gratitude we feel for our members, volunteers, supporters and leaders. All of you have helped us make the most of this critical election year! We’ll be spending the rest of 2022 planning our work for the upcoming legislative session, our annual Membership meeting and other important events. Thank you for all of your involvement and the ways in which you inspire us. We appreciate all of our affiliates and partners, too, who have helped us build more grassroots power this year. 

We’d also like to use this week’s opening message to express our sorrow and outrage about the deadly attack on LGBTQ folks who were gathered at Club Q in Colorado Springs this past weekend. The patrons were gathered to see a drag show on the eve of Transgender Day of Remembrance. Our hearts go out to everyone who was there, to those who are injured and recovering, to the queer community in Colorado, and all the families and friends who lost someone dear to them.

In this Memo: News about our election wins; about task forces and chapters around the state; a roundup of News you can Use, and catalog of recent blog posts. Read on...

In Maryland, elections continue to break glad for Democrats and in fact around the country (some counties still counting, tho)... Hogan's signature superhighways (with tolls) will be at the mercy of a new all-Dem Board of Public Works... Maryland's schools are so-so in the national ratings but forging ahead on reform with both state and federal financial backup... Maryland's state workers are at an all-time low across state agencies; a good way to save money? ... at the national level, health care and housing continue to be top priorities for working families. It's all in News You Can Use. Read on....

The results (or at least most of them) are in! We used our voices and our votes to elect more women and people of color to offices up and down the ballot, to legalize cannabis, and to affirm our support of democracy! We’re taking some time this week and next to celebrate and to reflect on our 2022 electoral program and the overall election results.

Follow Progressive Maryland's Weekly Memo for updates on these and many other issues and campaigns on behalf of working families' interests.

Democrats in Maryland swept the top state elected offices -- governor, comptroller and attorney general -- and all three now have a long list of promises to keep. They or their campaigns are responding to questions about how to get there from here. Plus health news that could have been buried by 24/7 ballot-counting, and the steady rumble of statewide education policy, gearing up for big changes.

And -- big surprise -- Georgia officials have already come up with a way to excuse voter suppression for the Senate runoff.

The chair of Progressive Maryland's board, Sean Dobson, remembers Del. Sheila Hixson, the longest-serving woman in the General Assembly.  She died in New Smyrna Beach, Fla. last Sunday at 89.

This is it! Election Day is tomorrow! If you or your family members haven’t yet voted, you need to go to the polls tomorrow! Polls open at 7:00 a.m. We strongly recommend that you go in the morning and take care of this important civic duty before getting into the rest of your day. If you’ve received your ballot by mail be sure to drop it at a drop box today or tomorrow before 8:00 p.m.

Questions about voting? Check out this guide. Folks who are not registered can still register to vote and vote in person tomorrow.

This election year, we’re taking our demands for a more just and inclusive Maryland to the ballot box. We have a chance to vote for candidates and ballot measures that will support our communities and protect our democracy. Be sure to vote up and down the ballot: all of these elected officials matter in our day to day lives because of the important decisions they make.

People are voting tomorrow all over the country, every state, “the great mystery of democracy” as a 20^th-century political sage called it will actually happen and the polls will be history, right or wrong. The era of early voting including mail-in has muddled that sense of one-day-settles-all. Here is the morning tally from Pluribus News: More than 40.5 million Americans have voted already this year, according to University of Florida political scientist Michael McDonald’s U.S. Elections Project. In the 23 states where voters register by party, Democrats hold a 43%-34% turnout edge.

Also in News You Can Use this week: Election disruption attempts in Maryland and some other states; Congress's "lame duck" session; Wes Moore gets ink; a West Virginia refugee crisis here? Read on.

We’re eight days away from the final day to vote in this critical midterm election. Just in time for the last stretch of the campaign, Progressive Maryland has released a toolkit for voters. Click here to check it out and share with your family and friends, especially those who have not yet voted. We need to show up and show our power this November!

We’ve got good reasons to vote: 

• There are great progressive candidates on the ballot who will work for policies that benefit everyday Marylanders. Here are some of the folks who are running.  
• We can change our failed marijuana policies by voting FOR Question 4 to legalize possession of small quantities of cannabis. Passing the measure means Maryland will join several other states who have modernized cannabis laws.

In order to win we’ve got to keep reaching out to voters! We want to be sure they know about candidates up and down the ballot as well as Ballot Question 4. Take a minute now to sign up for a two hour shift. It’s fun and it makes a difference.

Sign up for a phone banking shift.

Sign up to text bank with us!

See below for more news about our organizing work. Thanks and we hope to see you at the polls or at one of our GOTV events!

A past contract for a vendor to oversee mental health and behavioral care in the state doesn't seem to be working out, and a contract for BWI concessions soon to be up for approval by outgoing officials is looking "rigged" according to some. Plus election news, state life expectancy, schools and their resouirce officers, and allegations of internal bias in state police ranks. It's all here and more in News You Can Use.