MENU

Sections

More

May 9, 2025

Chestertown Spy

Nonpartisan and Education-based News for Chestertown

News Maryland News

Homelessness in Maryland Worsens During COVID-19 Pandemic

by

Share

The coronavirus pandemic has increased the strain on groups that work to prevent homelessness in Maryland, with experts saying single mothers and people of color are being hurt the most.

Multiple advocacy groups have expanded their programs to try to handle the surge in cases, as one agency said requests for help have nearly tripled from March to early October.

“It was already concerning last year because we had 239 clients total, all of 2019, and (as of Oct. 14), I have 600,” said Carol Ott, tenant advocacy director at the Fair Housing Action Center. “And the overwhelming majority of these people are Black, single women with children.”

Of all 2020 tenants through early October who needed financial assistance at the Fair Housing Action Center, 67% are women and 57% are Black.

“Sadly, those two numbers rarely change much. We always see a majority of Black women, most with children,” Ott said.

But the high numbers recently have been triggering a lot of alarm bells, she said.

In April, people rushed to file for unemployment once being laid off, but as of October, some were still waiting for their benefits to come through, Ott said.

Ott said some tenants who were evicted in January and February before the spike in cases are not covered under some COVID assistance programs. As the courts closed in March once the pandemic hit, it was more difficult to get their case in court and handled.

On top of the courts closing, their jobs would be lost from the layoffs due to the pandemic and they would have no means of making up the money to help themselves until their postponed court date.

With the lack of court access once the pandemic hit, the Fair Housing Action center reported increased incidences of tenant harassment and illegal evictions. Ott said she wishes that the Maryland Legislature had convened an emergency session to assess assistance.

The Maryland Joint Committee on Ending Homelessness — including members from both the state House of Delegates and the Senate — last month heard advocacy groups discuss what they needed in order to help those who are homeless and help their groups continue to support others.

Increased state funding for homelessness prevention, and direct financial assistance for people who lost their jobs because of the pandemic and had to wait several months for their unemployment payments were among the suggestions.

The Community Legal Services in Prince George’s County said that while the courts were pretty much closed from March to around August, their office therefore had to be closed, but they continued to work remotely. They assisted clients with brief advice through email.

Taylor Williams at Community Legal Services said the bulk of their clients are Hispanic, Latino, African American, and single mothers.

Single mothers with school-age children are facing new struggles with classes in session this fall.

“It’s really difficult to tell a woman you have to go find a job during a pandemic with two small children who are out of school,” said Ott. “Child care is a huge issue with a lot of our tenants. Most of them are people who are used to working … and they want to go back to work, but what are they supposed to do with their children?”

Executive Director Beth Benner at the Women’s Housing Coalition in Baltimore said having children makes it more complicated to get back on your feet. On top of the economic issues and mental health or physical issues, they also need to juggle keeping their kids in school while making them feel stabilized and loved.

While most of their clients are women and single mothers, 85-95% of their clients at any time are people of color, Benner said.

Benner said 39% of Marylanders are at or below that threshold of basically living paycheck to paycheck as of September, according to the United Way of Central Maryland.

Gov. Larry Hogan, R, issued an eviction prevention moratorium at the beginning of the pandemic that runs until Dec. 31.

This has meant an increase in illegal evictions and smaller landlords going around this moratorium by not renewing leases in which tenants have less protection in these cases in court, according to the Fair Housing Action Center.

The Women’s Housing Coalition reported that a second wave of the virus would bring more unemployment, with the cold weather curtailing businesses that moved outdoors, and will cause a dramatic increase in homelessness.

Gov. Larry Hogan, R, this week announced increased restrictions in the state for some businesses as the virus has spiked in recent days.

In 2019, the National Alliance to End Homelessness reported that 6,561 people were homeless on any given night in Maryland. Seventeen out of 10,000 people were homeless in one night in January of 2019 in the United States, according to the Aspen Institute.

The Aspen Institute estimated in August that 30 million to 40 million people could be at risk for eviction in the next few months.

It was estimated that at the beginning of the pandemic, 400,000 units would need to be created in the United States in order to safely socially distance, isolate, and protect the homeless against the virus in place of the crowded shelters that typically are used, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

For those who need stable housing, the Women’s Housing Coalition reported that there are only three available units for every 10 families in Maryland who need them.

The Housing Coalition said there is a need for a low barrier to entry for all affordable housing through a more effective and efficient process for paperwork and inspections.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

In an Anxiety-Ridden Year, U.S. Voter Turnout Rate Highest Since 1900

by

Share

More people voted in this year’s election than ever before, some motivated by fear, some by peer influence, some by the wide options available for voting, some by social media and still others by love or hate for President Donald Trump.

As of Thursday, an estimated 159 million people, accounting for 66.4% of the eligible voting population, cast ballots in this election, according to the University of Florida’s United States Elections Project. That exceeds the turnout percentages for the past 120 years, going back to the 1900 race, when 73.2% of the voting eligible population cast ballots, ultimately re-electing President William McKinley over Democratic challenger William Jennings Bryan.

“High turnout is a sign of a healthy democracy,” Michael McDonald, who runs the Elections Project, wrote in USA Today on Wednesday.

He also pointed to a pre-election Gallup Poll in which 77% of registered voters said the 2020 election mattered more to them than previous elections – the highest level since the polling firm started asking that question in 1996. Still, over one-third of voting eligible people did not cast a ballot in this election.

Experts say fear of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and about the economy, strong feelings about Trump, the current social climate and peer influences, among other factors, spawned this historic turnout. And many states still are tabulating ballots.

Following an established pattern since at least 2000, turnout rates were especially high in key swing states. Over 75% of eligible voters cast ballots in Wisconsin, New Hampshire, and Iowa, while over 70% of eligible voters did so in Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina and Florida. Georgia received ballots from just under 70% of eligible voters.

“There’s a couple of things going on there,” said Michael Hanmer, research director of the University of Maryland’s Center for Democracy and Civil Engagement.

“The feeling that something more is at stake could be part of the internal motivator” for individual voters, Hanmer said, in states where, because of the Electoral College system, a vote for Trump wouldn’t have much impact in a state that voted Democratic, and a vote for Biden wouldn’t count for much in a state that voted Republican.

Voters in the battleground states don’t have that concern. Campaigns spend more energy and money in states that could go either way.

“It’s harder in those states to ignore what’s going on. It’s going to be on TV, it’s going to be on radio, it’s more likely to be on their social media, they’re more likely to get a door knock,” Hanmer said.

Non-swing states with especially high turnout rates, estimated by the Elections Project, were Maine, Minnesota, Colorado, Washington and Oregon – all saw three-quarters or more of their eligible voters cast ballots. Maryland ranked fifteenth in voter turnout, with just over 72% of eligible voters, according to the Elections Project estimates.

The availability of mail-in voting and early voting due to the coronavirus pandemic may have contributed to high turnout in some states. In Maryland, about half of the state’s voters mailed in their ballots.

Historically, states that regularly conduct elections by mail, such as Oregon, have greater voter turnout than those states that traditionally do not use the mails for balloting.

In Pennsylvania, where ballots still were being counted, Secretary of State Kathy Bookvar told reporters Thursday that she expected a very high turnout in the battleground state.

“Pennsylvanians have had more choices this year than in the history of the commonwealth,” she said.

Hanmer said that voting law changes to accommodate the pandemic likely generated some turnout, but added that since even many states that did not make these changes, like Texas, saw increased turnout, there were other factors at play as well.

“I really think that the turnout story for this election is more about general interest and mobilization,” Hanmer said.

The pandemic may have been responsible for some of this mobilization: “We’ve had our lives upended and we’re in this environment where our physical social circles have largely shrunk, and we’re really hard pressed to avoid coverage of what’s going on in the news,” Hanmer said.

David Paleologos, director of Suffolk University’s Political Research Center, said usually “what increases voter turnout is the quality of the candidates,” but this year is historic in that high voter turnout seemed to be primarily motivated by fear.

“it’s just ironic to me that Joe Biden … has the ability to get the most votes, ever, ever, and he’s not the person that people are excited about,” Paleologos said.

Memories of Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016 may also have spurred additional turnout for Biden.

“People didn’t get out to vote because they assumed she was going to win,” Paleologos said, adding that there wasn’t “that element of surprise” this time around.

Hanmer also suspects social media and peer influence contributed to the high turnout.

“A lot of people were engaged this year in contacting other people, and I mean just regular people contacting their friends, not necessarily always part of some wider formal campaign activity,” Hanmer said. “That’s just been increasingly common as a tactic.”

Alexandra Palm, a 24-year-old nanny and pizza deliverer in Spokane, Washington, said she did not want to vote this year, but was shamed into casting a ballot for Biden.

“On social media is where I felt shamed a lot,” Palm said. She said that it wasn’t usually personally directed toward her, but “if I ever brought up that I was not voting, there was never a time when someone would just ever respect that decision, ever.”

Instead, she said people told her she couldn’t complain about election results if she didn’t vote, and that if she didn’t vote for Biden it counted as a vote for Trump. Her father and people on social media told her “you have to vote, you have to vote, you have to vote,” she said.

Ralph Watkins, a volunteer with the League of Women Voters, said “just the tone overall seemed to be far stronger than in many recent elections.”

“Democrats were very passionate about wanting to turn (Trump) out of office, and many Republicans were equally passionate about wanting to keep (Trump) in office,” Watkins said.

Watkins said the pandemic and the resulting economic downturn generated turnout along party lines: those who worried more about the economy tended to vote Republican, while those who worried more about the pandemic tended to vote Democrat.

Additionally, “concerns about racism are really critical, and turnout in African American areas was very high and very democratic,” Watkins said.

Marqus Shaw, 35, of Oklahoma City, voted for Biden — his first time voting. He said it was mainly to vote against Donald Trump.

“(Biden)’s better than Trump to me,” Shaw said. “Trump just says things that you shouldn’t say, he shows no compassion, and he’s a racist.”

In the past, Shaw said, he has felt like his vote wouldn’t matter, but this year he said he “just can’t take Trump anymore.”

Paleologos said turnout driven by fear “doesn’t bode well for the system at large” and may indicate a failure of the party system.

“If we’re going to have two parties, the key is for the party system to enable and support candidates who have broad appeal,” he said. “Right now we don’t have that. Right now the party system thrives on negativity.”

By Gracie Todd and Luciana Perez Uribe

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Biden Elected 46th President of the United States

by

Share

After more than three days of uncertainty in a closely-contested race, former Vice President Joe Biden has defeated President Donald Trump to become the 46th president of the United States.

California Sen. Kamala Harris also made history, as she will become the first woman — and first woman of color — to hold the vice-presidency. She is of Jamaican and Indian descent.

“America, I’m honored that you have chosen me to lead our great country,” Biden tweeted just before noon Saturday. “The work ahead of us will be hard, but I promise you this: I will be a president for all Americans – whether you voted for me or not. I will keep the faith that you have placed in me.”

After four days of waiting, news organizations declared Biden the winner late Saturday morning after new returns from his native state of Pennsylvania made it clear he would take the battleground and its 20 Electoral College votes, giving him 3 votes more than needed to make him president.

The president-elect, who turns 78 on Nov. 20, began his political career with narrow victories in Delaware and election to the United States Senate in 1972 weeks before he turned 30. He twice previously ran unsuccessfully for the presidency – in 1988 (ended after just three and a half months in 1987) and again in 2008. He will finally make it to the White House with another close win.

He amassed more votes than any other presidential candidate in American history, breaking the record that President Barack Obama set in 2008.

Harris’s ascension to the vice presidency will be “really wonderful for the United States,” said William Spriggs, an economics professor at the Californian’s alma mater, Howard University, an historically black institution in Washington.

“I think this will start a legacy that Americans will finally get used to the idea of women in leadership, and accept her role as setting the mark and paving a path for other women to ascend to top leadership,” Spriggs told Capital News Service.

Harris, 56, is a challenger-turned-ally of Biden. A rising progressive star, she attacked him during the primary for his opposition to busing to desegregate schools. She also set herself apart from the political veteran by embracing the Green New Deal and Medicare-for-All, as well as calling for a ban on fracking.

Harris is expected to bring a more progressive perspective to the moderate president-elect’s agenda.

With the coronavirus pandemic raging across the nation, it appears unlikely that Biden and Harris would celebrate the start of their administration in the traditional manner that would call for an oath-taking ceremony Jan. 20 on the West Front of the United States Capitol, witnessed by massive crowds stretching for blocks on the National Mall.

The inauguration plans are to come, but Biden and Harris already have activated a website for the transition and are assembling a transition team. As a symbol of the coming change in power, the United States Secret Service earlier in the week dispatched additional agents to the Biden home in Wilmington, Delaware, and the Federal Aviation Administration designed the skies above that home as restricted airspace.

Despite the pandemic — or many experts believe because of the various voting methods it made necessary — the total turnout for this election is expected to break a 120-year-old record.

Michael Hanmer, research director for the University of Maryland’s Center for Democracy and Civil Engagement, said “motivational factors (to vote) were just more present” in this election, though voting law changes to accommodate the pandemic also played a part.

The small margin of victory, combined with the overwhelming use of mail-in ballots, appeared to infuriate the president, as he continued to falsely claim that he was cheated out of reelection. Some of his Republican allies made similar unfounded attacks, while others in the GOP – mainly those out of office – denounced Trump’s accusations as dangerous and irresponsible.

Trump had repeatedly questioned the legality of mail-in ballots and discouraged his supporters from voting by mail. As a result, mail-in ballots in many states with little history of using that voting method leaned very heavily to Biden.

Many states counted mail-in ballots after tabulating Election Day ballots cast in-person, initially generating the appearance of a Republican surge in some of the battleground states. But the counting of the mail-in ballots – a slow process – began producing a Democratic counter-wave that materialized as early as Wednesday.

Multiple networks — including ABC, NBC, MSNBC, and CBS — cut away almost at the start of a Trump speech in the White House Thursday night when the president leveled baseless and false claims about the vote counts.

“If you count the legal votes, I easily win. If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us,” Trump claimed.

No credible evidence of fraud has been produced, according to the Associated Press.

The president’s claims of cheating were “especially disconcerting because the dangers of Trump’s rhetoric will outlive his time in the office,” Peter Ubertaccio, dean of arts and sciences at Stonehill College in Massachusetts, told CNS.

Millions of people believe Trump’s accusations of voter fraud despite no neutral observers stepping in to raise concerns about legitimacy, he said. This will, in turn, lead many citizens to believe that this election was stolen from Trump, Ubertaccio added.

“On the list of dangerous things Donald Trump has done, this ranks pretty highly — he has basically called American elections illegitimate because they didn’t go his way,” Ubertaccio said.

While counting of votes continued, the Trump campaign filed lawsuits to stop the counts in Michigan, Georgia — where federal judges rejected them — and Pennsylvania.

Caleb Jackson, a voting rights attorney at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, called the lawsuits “absolutely frivolous and meritless” that “will not get them anywhere and not have an impact on the election.”

In states where mail-in ballots seemed to be benefitting Trump a bit more, such as Arizona, the president and his allies urged election officials to count every vote.

“Of course it’s contradictory,” Jackson said. “There’s nothing legally that bars them from making those arguments, but, you know, professionally and ethically…it goes against what you swear to do as an attorney.”

In states such as Pennsylvania and Georgia, automatic recounts will be generated if the margins are 0.5% or less. But recounts also can be requested by Trump’s team and were expected.

Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, has announced Friday that there will be a recount in his state.

But Biden’s victory, especially given the closeness of this race, does not indicate that it would necessarily open the way for significant policy changes, Ubertaccio said.

“We are a 50/50 country, and partisans on both sides have an active dislike of the folks on the other side,” said Ubertaccio. “Even landslide victories don’t by themselves indicate long-term changes to American politics.”

If Republicans retain control of the Senate, which is not yet clear, Biden would have a hard time getting legislation to pass without the acquiescence of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky.

While it was Biden who often negotiated with McConnell during the Obama years over budget deals and other legislation – both drawing on their long relationship with each other – the new president would be dealing with very different political dynamics after a hard-fought, divisive election.

With Senate races waiting to be called, the current makeup is even with 48 members projected to be on each side of the aisle, and two runoff elections in Georgia in January present the Democrats with an opportunity to take control of the chamber.

Even so, it was the stark contrast between Biden’s progressive agenda and Trump administration policies that “helped drive turnout,” Hanmer said.

“Most people had a pretty good understanding of what they would get with Donald Trump if he were to win, and what they would get from Joe Biden if he were to win,” he added.

By Kaanita Iyer, Jacob Rousseau, Gracie Todd, Luciana Perez-Uribe, Aneurin Canham-Clyne, and Michelle Siegel

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

What Will We Know and When Will We Know it on Tuesday (Or Later)?

by

Share

With record voter turnout, including a high volume of mail-in ballots, and mail delays expected, it is unclear whether we will know who the next president is on election night, experts say.

“I’ve been expecting the unexpected,” said Michael Hanmer, research director at the Center for American Politics and Citizenship, a nonpartisan research center at the University of Maryland, College Park. “I think that’s the best way to work through this because there’s so many different possibilities.”

However, Hanmer told Capital News Service it’s “pretty safe to say” that Democratic nominee Joe Biden is headed for a significant popular vote margin over President Donald Trump. But, similar to 2016, determining the next occupant of the Oval Office is going to come down to the Electoral College – and it’s possible this year that may not be settled until some days after Tuesday.

As of Friday morning, nearly 83.5 million early votes were already cast, of which nearly 54 million, or 64.6%, were mailed, according to the University of Florida’s United States Elections Project.

But in many states, including four of eight battleground states — Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — ballots are not allowed to be counted until Election Day.

Twenty-one states, plus the District of Columbia, accept ballots up to 17 days after Election Day. Of these, two are battleground states: Pennsylvania and North Carolina.

New York and Alaska, which accept mail-in ballots 7 and 10 days after Election Day, respectively, have said that they will not report “any mail votes on election night,” according to the New York Times.

In the battleground state of Michigan, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has estimated her count may be completed by Nov. 6, three days after Election Day. Pennsylvania, another battleground, may get the bulk of its votes tallied within a couple of days, according to Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar.

But the nation might not have to wait too long because “we’ll have a lot of information about a couple of really key states (on election night),” particularly Florida and Arizona, where mail-in ballots must be received by Election Day, Hanmer said.

“That might allow us to project forward what’s going to happen in a definitive way,” he said.

“I think really the only state that (Hilary) Clinton won (in 2016) that (Donald) Trump has a shot at is Nevada and it’s a relatively small number of electoral votes, so I don’t think Trump can win without Florida,” Hanmer he said.

While a Biden win in Florida would suggest that he’s going to win in both popular and electoral votes, turning Arizona blue would not make results as clear, according to Hanmer. If Biden gets Arizona, it can foreshadow a national victory by a huge margin or a close race determined by few electoral votes for either candidate, he said.

However, FiveThirtyEight’s presidential forecast predicts that if Biden wins Florida or Arizona, he has a 99% and 98% chance, respectively, for an Electoral College win.

Hanmer, who also is a government and politics professor at Maryland and an expert for MIT’s Election Data & Science Lab, expects that “we should know a good bit” about Georgia, which has an Election Day deadline for mail-in ballots, and North Carolina, as well.

While North Carolina accepts ballots after Election Day, the state has seen a high volume of early voting. FiveThirtyEight’s founder Nate Silver reported that “it’s expected that as much as 80% of the vote there can be announced shortly after polls close.”

If those go to Biden, Hanmer predicts that the country won’t “have to worry as much about what the count is going to be in some of the states that are processing late because I think that will largely solidify things in terms of us having a clear winner.”

If Biden wins Georgia, his chances for an electoral win is 99%, while grabbing North Carolina, pushes the probability over 99%, according to FiveThirtyEight’s presidential forecast.

In the case that Georgia and North Carolina do not go to Biden, Hanmer said “we might just have to wait until all the counting is done.” Then the results can “really hinge” on Pennsylvania, where “we’re just not going to have solid information on what the result is…for a while because they can’t count or process their ballots until very late,” he said.

Trump has repeatedly called for final results to be called on election night, in part due to his distrust in mail-in voting – even though he did it himself this year.

“Big problems and discrepancies with Mail In Ballots all over the USA. Must have final total on November 3rd,” he tweeted Monday night.

That kind of rhetoric is inappropriate, warned the National Council on Election Integrity, a bipartisan group of former elected officials.

“Our Constitution and our state election laws require us to count every vote, including legally cast absentee votes,” the council said in a statement Wednesday. “Because of an unprecedented number of absentee ballots this year, counting every vote is not likely to be concluded on election night. In some states, thorough vote counting can last weeks, even in the best of times.”

Almost half of returned mail ballots in 19 states that report party registration data, including Arizona, Florida, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, were from registered Democrats, according to the Elections Project. On the other hand, 60% of Trump supporters told the Pew Research Center in late summer that they would rather vote in person on Election Day.

On election night, this could mean that in states that report mail-in ballots first, initial results may favor Biden. In places that report in-person, day-of votes first, such as most parts of Virginia, Trump may seem to have the lead.

While this pattern in which ballots received post-election favor Democrats is well-established, Walter Shapiro, in an analysis for the Brennan Center for Justice, warns that the pandemic may disrupt this trend “since different demographic groups may be voting by mail.”

In key states, the Republican Party wants to prevent this “blue shift” while Democrats are relying on it. However, research reported by MIT News shows that historically, even “some of the biggest post-Election Day shifts” — the largest being 6.9% in 1968 towards George Wallace in Georgia — have not tipped the outcome of the election.

Yet both parties have fought over mail-in ballot deadlines in the Supreme Court, and such legal back-and-forth, which may continue after Election Day, could further delay results in critical states.

Last week, the Supreme Court denied the Pennsylvania Republican Party’s request to reject ballots if received after Election Day. In a 4-4 decision, the court ruled that the battleground state can accept ballots if received within three days after Election Day. After the party asked the court to reconsider the decision, the justices let their earlier ruling stand.

Also on Wednesday, the Supreme Court backed a lower-court ruling and similarly allowed North Carolina to accept mail-in ballots up to nine days after Election Day, extending the deadline to Nov. 12.

However, an attempt by Wisconsin Democrats to also extend the mail-in ballot deadline by three days to Nov. 6 was first accepted by a federal district court, but then blocked by an appeals court. The Supreme Court voted 5 to 3 on Monday to uphold the appeals court.

Another blow to Democrats came on Thursday when a federal appeals court struck down Minnesota’s plan to accept mail-in ballots up to seven days after election. The key state will now only be able to accept ballots received by 8 p.m. on Election Day.

While states can continue contesting mail-in ballot deadlines and bring them to the Supreme Court — which Hanmer told CNS wouldn’t be surprising — “the court sent a pretty strong signal that changing things now, given how deep we are into the process, is unlikely,” he said.

He predicts that legal challenges after the election are “more likely,” and so are anger, disbelief and protests from supporters on both sides.

“It seems very odd to say that about a presidential election in the United States, but there’s a lot of signals that suggests that large portions are not going to accept well the outcome either way,” Hanmer said.

“What people do about that, I think, is a big unknown,” he said. “But it’s something we have to prepare for.”

The National Council on Election Integrity counseled patience and trust: “Every ballot cast in accordance with applicable laws must be counted — that’s the American way. All Americans, including the presidential candidates themselves, have a patriotic duty to be patient as election officials count the votes. Both candidates have a responsibility to remind the country that November 3 is the last day for votes to be cast — not the last day for votes to be counted.”

By Kaanita Iyer

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Question 1: Md. Voters Will Weigh in on Increased Budgetary Power for State Lawmakers

by

Share

With early voting set to begin Monday, Marylanders will consider a proposed constitutional amendment granting the legislature the ability to increase, decrease and add items to the state budget.

Legislators advanced the measure in March, largely along party lines, with lead sponsors arguing it seeks to balance the budget process while opponents say it removes a check on lawmakers.

If approved by voters, ballot question 1 would authorize the General Assembly to make changes to the state budget as long as those changes do not cause the budget to exceed the total amount submitted by the governor.

“To my knowledge, there is not another legislature that is limited in its ability to be able to change the budget, other than decrease amounts,” Stella M. Rouse, associate professor and director of the Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement at the University of Maryland emailed Capital News Service on Oct. 9. “This is a bit unique.”

The legislature’s budget authority was limited by a constitutional amendment approved by voters in 1916 in an effort to avoid a financial crisis. A balanced budget amendment in 1974 set further restrictions on Maryland’s “unique” budgetary process.

“Under the current Maryland constitution, unlike every other state legislature in the country,” Sen. James C. Rosapepe, D-Prince George’s and Anne Arundel, told the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee when introducing Senate Bill 1028 on March 4. “We have an extremely limited ability to make decisions about how money is spent in the current year’s budget.”

Currently, Article III, section 52 of the Maryland constitution prevents the state legislature from increasing funding or adding any new appropriations to the governor’s executive budget, but lawmakers can decrease funding.

Over the years, legislators developed budgetary tools, which former Senator P.J. Hogan, an early sponsor of similar budget amendments, told the Senate committee back in March were ineffective. One of these is a process of earmarking money known as “fencing off.”

Another way lawmakers direct spending is to mandate it through legislation passed by the majority-Democrat General Assembly.

“What has not worked is ‘fencing’ as an example,” P.J. Hogan said. “Think about the number of times you have fenced off money and said it can only be spent for ‘this’ and a governor says, ‘I’m not going to release the money for that.’ Or you go the other route for mandating spending and that causes problems because you are trying to predict the future.”

Rosapepe explained to the committee that the bill’s title, “Balancing the State Budget,” referred not only to ensuring the state’s finances remain fiscally balanced, “but also balanced between the responsibilities of the governor and the responsibilities of the legislature.”

“One way different groups get a voice in government is through the legislature, through the budget process,” Rosapepe recently told Capital News Service. “Since 1916, the voice of the people does not have a role in allocating money in the budget. It limits the voice of the people in setting priorities in the budget.”

He said one goal of the amendment is to give state lawmakers the same authority that other legislatures across the country and even city councils across the state have when allocating funds toward constituent priorities and giving them a role and a voice in government.

“This is actually a fairly simple change,” Delegate Marc A. Korman, D-Montgomery, said in an email to the Capital News Service. “That provides the Maryland legislature a power 49 other states have, and most Marylanders believe we already have, to let the people’s branch of government fund the people’s priorities.”

While Rouse was not willing to go so far as to say the Maryland General Assembly’s current limited budget authority was unprecedented among other states, a detailed assessment of Maryland’s budget process conducted in 2003 by the Department of Legislative Services, using materials prepared by the National Conference of State Legislatures, found “in most states the governor’s proposal establishes a framework for budget discussion.”

But the study reported in Maryland, Nebraska and West Virginia the legislature had limited power to increase or decrease budget items. Korman, Rosapepe and other amendment supporters argue this limits Marylanders’ ability to influence the budget.

However, a Goucher College Poll released this week revealed how complex ascertaining the public’s funding priorities could be, as shown in Marylanders’ “mixed” responses to questions on police funding.

“Maryland residents are largely supportive of key police reforms that are currently being discussed by state lawmakers and have dominated our national discourse,” said Mileah Kromer, director of the Sarah T. Hughes Field Politics Center at Goucher College in a statement released with the poll results.

“But there’s a mixed message on police budgets,” she added. “Residents support both increasing funding to hire more or better trained police officers and reducing police budgets to allocate more money to social programs.”

Republican opponents of the budget amendment say the governor is in the best position to interpret Marylanders’ priorities.

Sen. Bryan W. Simonaire, R-Anne Arundel, who recently assumed the position of Senate Minority Leader, told Capital News Service it was appropriate for the governor to have his current role in the budget process because his responsibilities are to the entire state and not just a district.

“The people of Maryland elect the governor for a statewide office,” he explained. “I’m elected by 1/47th of the population of the state while the governor has to have the perspective of the whole state.”

The Maryland Department of Budget and Management, in an opposition letter submitted on March 4 to the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee, stated the proposed amendment weakens the executive budget system put into place by voters in 1916.

“The rationale for the Executive Budget Amendment,” the statement reads. “Is that the Governor is the official best suited to preparing a comprehensive plan of expenditures because he has daily responsibility for the administration of State government.”

Simonaire added that Marylanders have shown they prefer a divided government through a Republican governor and a Democratic legislative majority. He believed a new budget amendment could offset this power balance.

He also cautioned that if legislators had more power over the budget process they could use it to benefit their districts, particularly larger ones. A few other Republicans agreed.

Back in 2014, the state’s less-populous yet reliably Republican jurisdictions helped propel Hogan into the governorship, while denser jurisdictions such as Montgomery and Prince George’s counties and Baltimore tend to vote more Democratic. These more populous districts have more representation in the General Assembly.

Delegate Kathy Szeliga, R-Harford and Baltimore counties, who is also opposed to the amendment, wrote in an email to her constituents on Oct. 8 that she would vote against expanding “the legislature’s ability to spend tax dollars and increase spending.”

“The current system creates a check and a balance on the legislature’s desire to centralize funding to the urban areas of Maryland,” she stated.

Delegate Susan W. Krebs, R-Carroll, also mentioned the current system as a check on legislative budgetary power in an email to her constituents this week. She stated she would be voting against the amendment as well.

“The current system creates a check and a balance on the legislature and forces compromise with the governor,” she wrote. “And I think that is good for the entire state.”

But other legislators, Democrats, disagreed.

“This is a restoration of our role. This is not us imposing ourselves on any gubernatorial power,” Delegate Gabriel Acevero, D-Montgomery, who sponsored the House version of the bill told the Appropriations Committee on March 18. “This is a restoration of the legislature’s role to ensure Maryland does not continue to be the weakest state legislature in the union as it relates to the budget. And we’re doing it in a democratic fashion by putting it to the people.”

The Maryland Center on Economic Policy wrote in their statement of support that the limits placed on the General Assembly in 1916 were “in response to a problem that no longer exists,” and that the current amendment “offers a better way to share decision-making authority between the branches.”

Henry Bogdan of the Maryland Association of Nonprofits further testified before the committee in March that the public is currently cut out of the budget process because “You, their representatives, have no power to advance any particular thing that needs to be done.”

“It’s much harder for a constituent or community group to get the attention of the governor on a problem than it is for the constituents or community groups in your districts,” Bogdan said. “You all tend to be much more responsive to people, and you should be able to respond to issues where people want to advance causes in the budget.”

Ultimately, as Delegate Maggie McIntosh, D-Baltimore, chairman of the Appropriations Committee pointed out on March 18, it is up to the people of Maryland to decide what happens next.

“This bill, if it goes to the ballot,” she told the committee before the measure passed, “your constituents have just as much power as you do. Equal power. Their vote is just as powerful as yours.”

By Philip Van Slooten

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Covid-19 Restrictions Led to Drop in Maryland’s Air Pollution

by

Share

In the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, as stay-at-home orders took effect and more commuters worked from home or lost their jobs, air pollution dropped markedly in Maryland, according to a recent report from the University of Maryland and the state’s Department of the Environment.

Levels of noxious pollutants were markedly lower: nitrogen oxide decreased around 15 percent, and carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide by 30 percent each from roughly mid-February to late May following plummets in traffic due to Gov. Larry Hogan’s stay-at-home orders, joblessness, an increase in telework and closed school buildings.

Traffic also decreased — registering between 50 and 80 percent fewer Vehicle Miles Travelled according to preliminary data — since the early weeks of the pandemic in Maryland, according to the study.

A pollutant called “black carbon” — tied largely to diesel fuel — decreased 30 percent during a two-month period, though data indicated that truck traffic decreased less than from other vehicles.

The state’s environment department, working closely with the University of Maryland, NASA and other government agencies and university researchers, used satellites, air samples from airplanes, roadside monitoring and traffic data to calculate the effects of the pandemic on the state’s air quality.  Much of the data was collected from mid- to late-March through late May.

Researchers took into account pollution decreases that would normally occur with changes in weather, established teleworking and commuting trends and other expected changes to determine what was likely a result of the pandemic.

The significant decreases in air pollution are not surprising, according to Maryland Secretary of the Environment Ben Grumbles, as traffic on I-95 alone was down 50 percent at the beginning of March.

Now, as COVID restrictions are gradually being lifted, the main issue is how this reduction in air pollution is maintained when today’s “stay-at-home” reality moves into the past.

Grumbles, in an interview late last month with Capital News Service, pinpointed two key measures to keep air pollution at a reasonable minimum: teleworking and wide support for zero emissions vehicles.

Making teleworking more common and a routine in people’s lives is a way to maintain at least part of this drop, according to Grumbles.

“(C)ommon sense efforts to expand telework policies could generate significant reductions in (greenhouse gas) emissions,” the researchers found.

There is no denying the decrease in greenhouse gas emissions was a direct effect of people staying at home and traveling less, so teleworking is “the wave of the future,” Grumbles said.

The pandemic has created a stronger argument in favor of more zero-emissions vehicles in Maryland.

Currently there are around 26,000 zero-emissions vehicles in Maryland, according to the Maryland Department of Environment website.

Maryland has a goal to reach 300,000 electric vehicles by 2025 to have a substantial impact on the environment, Grumbles said.

Maryland and other states signed on to adhere to these principles. Northeastern states also partnered to create an action plan and set specific goals for zero-emissions vehicles.

“This is an audacious and ambitious goal but it is an excellent goal. However, we need game-changers to help with this,” said Grumbles.

Air pollution is especially relevant in a pandemic where the virus is usually evident as a respiratory infection.

Public transportation and investment in this sector will be one way to achieve lower air pollution levels, according to Director of Environment Maryland Kate Breiman, who said people need to find a greener way to get around.

The Hogan administration has looked to invest in not just green cars, but more environmentally friendly buses and trucks. In July, Maryland and 15 other states signed an agreement to increase the number of zero-emissions vehicles on the roads, according to the director of the Maryland Department of Environment’s Air and Radiation Management Administration Tad Aburn.

A combination of long-term solutions is key to maintaining the reductions seen in 2020, Aburn said.

By Rachel Clair

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Growing Old In MD Prisons: Working to Release Low-Risk, High-Cost Older Prisoners

by

Share

Ask him, and Stanley Mitchell will proudly tell you he works 12 hour days.

Over the last seven years, the 71-year-old Charles County resident has held a sweeping assortment of jobs, sometimes juggling multiple at the same time. It’s a big change after spending close to 40 years ping-ponging around the Maryland prison system, serving time for driving the getaway car in a homicide — a charge he denies to this day.

Mitchell is one of 199 people serving life sentences for violent crimes to have been released on probation since 2012, when Maryland’s highest court ruled them entitled to a new trial in an effort to remedy the flawed instructions given to the juries that convicted them. At the time of their release, members of this group ranged from 51 to 85 years old and had spent an average of 39 years behind bars.

Since coming home, the “Ungers” — nicknamed after the case under which they were released, Unger v. Maryland — have gotten married, found jobs, reconnected with relatives and become mentors in their communities. As of March of this year, only five have returned to prison after being convicted of a new crime or probation violation.

Criminal justice reform advocates in Maryland say this low recidivism rate exemplifies what research has shown for decades: as people grow older, they “age out” of engaging in criminal behavior. Keeping this high-needs population locked up, they argue, needlessly drains away taxpayer money and, as one advocate put it, turns prisons into “extraordinarily expensive nursing homes.”

Today, even as prison populations are falling nationwide, the number of incarcerated people considered to be geriatric is quickly expanding — riding on the wave of “tough on crime” sentencing practices that began proliferating in the 1980s. One report predicted that by 2030, people over 50 will make up one-third of the U.S. prison population.

For the last few years, an entourage of activists, state legislators, public defenders and policy experts have been working to ease the doors open to a parole process that many say is now stifled by politics.

By and large, they have the same goal: to give an aging population a better shot at coming home.

“Just locking people up does not solve all ills,” said Del. Kathleen Dumais, who has been active in efforts to tamp down mass incarceration in Maryland.

TAKING STEPS TOWARD REFORM

In Maryland, the geriatric release program aims to give incarcerated individuals who are 60 years and older, serving a mandatory sentence for a crime of violence and ineligible for parole a potential path to freedom.

However, despite the best attempts of state lawmakers to expand the program back in 2016, it remains strikingly under-used.

In 2018, Becky Feldman, the state’s deputy public defender, started looking into just how many people were eligible for release under the program. Out of the entire incarcerated population in Maryland, she came up with just one person: a 62-year-old man she eventually helped get paroled.

She marked down what she observed in a memo to Daniel Long, a retired judge who chairs a board established to monitor the success of the Justice Reinvestment Act, a massive criminal justice reform bill passed in 2016. Long convened a workgroup to take another crack at expanding geriatric release and after four months of work, the group presented its final recommendations to the board.

Among other reforms, the recommendations called for the program’s eligibility criteria to be extended to those serving time for nonviolent offenses. According to the workgroup, if all of the recommendations were implemented, the number of people eligible for geriatric release would jump to 265 individuals — a population only expected to increase over time.

But even though the recommendations were pitched as a “pilot program” with the potential for further expansion, Justice Policy Institute executive director Marc Schindler and other criminal justice reform advocates criticized them as not being far reaching enough — despite the success of those released under the Unger decision, they excluded those who were sentenced to life.

Schindler remembered the reactions of a group of men serving life sentences in the Jessup Correctional Institute when they were told that they had been excluded from the workgroup’s recommendations. They were devastated, he said, and were hardly pacified by the possibility that they might be included in a future iteration of the program’s expansion.

“‘I don’t have too much longer,’” Schindler recalled some of the men saying.

THE LEGISLATIVE FIGHT

Since getting out of prison seven years ago, Mitchell says he’s avoided trouble.

“Besides red light cameras, I haven’t had any negative interactions with law enforcement at all,” he said.

Same goes for the vast majority of the Ungers — all of whom, like Mitchell, were serving life sentences for violent offenses. And just like Mitchell, many were recommended for release by the Maryland Parole Commission over the course of their time behind bars. Still, they didn’t walk free until becoming eligible to receive new trials in 2012.

That’s because Maryland is one of just three states in the country where the governor gets final say on whether a person in prison on a life sentence should get out. And ever since Gov. Parris Glendening announced in 1995 that “life means life” — refusing to grant parole for people serving life terms except for medical reasons — it’s been a decision that’s rarely handed down.

Even though Gov. Larry Hogan’s actions have represented a departure from those of previous administrations — he has paroled or allowed the parole of 21 individuals serving life sentences, commuted the sentences of 21 and released another four on medical parole — some still say the governor’s inclusion in the parole process leaves it needlessly warped by politics.

This year, the Maryland General Assembly heard two bills that would remove the governor from the parole process, but in the midst of the rapidly spreading coronavirus outbreak, state lawmakers ended the session in a rushed whirlwind, passing over 650 bills in just three days. Neither of the two bills made it in the sprint to an early deadline.

Still, the two bills were boosted by an arsenal of supporters — from lawyers and formerly incarcerated individuals to religious groups.

However, Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger mounted a fierce opposition to the bills. He emphasized the importance of punishment, pointing out that only the “most heinous of crimes” receive life sentences — premeditated murder and felony murder, first degree rape and first degree sex offenses, for example.

“When you are making the important, public-safety decision of should the worst of the worst be back on our streets,” he said, “shouldn’t the chief executive of the state have a say, especially when the parole commission works for the executive branch?”

INTO THE FREE WORLD

The season was just turning from spring to summer when Mitchell was released from prison in 2013. All told, he spent 37 years, six months, 19 days and 21 minutes behind bars — more than he had lived in the free world before his incarceration.

While Mitchell did his time, life ground on without him. Seven years into his incarceration, Mitchell’s wife died of a heart attack, leaving their two young sons to be raised by their aunt. He said he wasn’t allowed to attend her funeral — only to view her body, handcuffed and supervised by three guards, for half an hour.

But there were bright spots, too. In late May of 2010, Mitchell met a woman by the name of Regina in the prison visitation room. They started talking over the phone, and some 10 months later, they were married. As of March, they have been together for nine years.

And Mitchell is still in touch with the people he became close with during his time behind bars, though he feels bad knowing that many of them will likely never be released.

“I realize that whenever a crime’s committed, there’s always going to be victims,” he said. “Some things you can never take back. . . [But] the majority of individuals, they just want to come out, want to have a family, enjoy their families and give back.”

By Angela Roberts

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Hogan’s Political Future Tied to Maryland’s Economic Recovery

by

Share

Grappling with the greatest test of his term, Gov. Larry Hogan, R, has been lauded for his leadership by experts who say his focus on facts and the future have saved lives during the coronavirus pandemic.

Longtime Hogan watchers say he has managed a diplomatic minefield well while leading the National Governors Association, and walking a fine line when he criticizes the federal response by rarely saying anything negative about President Donald Trump or Vice President Mike Pence by name.

His political standing appears to be rising, but the impact Hogan’s performance will have on his future political aspirations is still up in the air. The gains the second-term governor has made keeping the coronavirus curve down could be damaged long term if his pivot toward the state’s economic recovery does not create a sharp curve up.

“It obviously won’t be his fault. No one could have expected him to know (this virus) was coming, but it will be his job to right the (economic) ship once the pandemic has subsided,” said Mileah Kromer, associate professor of political science and director of the Sarah T. Hughes Field Politics Center at Goucher College in Towson, Maryland.

“I think people do care a lot about the lives that were saved and the governor’s actions now, but the second part of this is the long-term economic recovery, and that will be really important, too.”

Hogan acknowledged the importance of reopening the state for business as he announced a three-stage plan that could lift his March 30 stay-at-home order as soon as early May. He invoked his experience as a business owner while pledging to do everything possible to reopen the state in a safe way.

“The entire focus of my administration has been growing the private sector, creating jobs and turning our economy around. It’s the reason I ran for governor,” Hogan said Friday. “And it breaks my heart to see so many Marylanders struggling and going through so much economic pain.

“So let me be very, very clear. Other than keeping Marylanders safe — saving lives and defeating this hidden enemy — there is absolutely nothing more important to me than getting people back to work.”

Maryland had 16,616 confirmed cases and 723 deaths as of Friday afternoon, but Kromer and other experts who have been watching Hogan respond to the pandemic told Capital News Service that Maryland has benefited immensely from his leadership on the national stage.

Hogan’s leadership of the National Governors Association gave him early access to information about outbreaks and what worked elsewhere, they say. In just 41 days, the state opened 6,700 new hospital beds. Just this week, Hogan acquired 500,000 test kits from his wife’s native country of South Korea.

His popularity in Maryland has also given him the political capital he needs to criticize the Trump Administration’s response, said Todd Eberly, a professor of political science at St. Mary’s College of Maryland who has written two books about Trump.

“He has a degree of freedom to speak without political consequences that I think a lot of red state governors don’t have,” Eberly said.

“You would not see someone like (Gov. Mike) DeWine in Ohio (doing this.) He has chartered his own course but he has not been critical of the president. Of course not, he is in a state where the president won by a huge margin and is still very popular.”

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, Hogan held a special position in national politics.

The son of the only Republican congressman to vote for all three of President Richard Nixon’s articles of impeachment, Hogan has been the only politician who could say that he thought Republicans should have been able to call witnesses during the House’s impeachment hearings and say that Trump’s Senate trial was “kind of a sham and a joke” because there were no witnesses.

This week, Trump suggested Hogan “needed to get a little knowledge” on federal testing sites when he suggested Maryland didn’t need the South Korean testing kits. In response, Hogan wrote a letter to the president thanking him for making the federal labs available to test his newly acquired test kits. It was the latest salvo in their verbal battle.

“You’re not going to see Hogan on television just blasting the president. That’s never been his style in Maryland,” Kromer said. “Hogan has often provided a contrast with the president.

“He has always wanted to keep a working relationship with the federal government.”

Hogan’s communications office did not make a spokesperson available for comment but Hogan told Politico in an interview Thursday he has tried to be as fair and direct as possible when dealing with the president.

“I say exactly what (the governors) think and sometimes that doesn’t make the president happy, but I don’t go out of my way to, you know, poke the bear or criticize him unnecessarily,” Hogan said. “I just try to be helpful with suggestions about the things that we really need and I try to push for the things we need.”

Hogan’s leadership skills have best been displayed at regular press conferences, when he relies on facts and experts, said Gerald Suarez, a professor in systems thinking and design at the University of Maryland and fellow at the Center for Leadership, Innovation and Change at the Robert H. Smith School of Business. Suarez also led the redesign of the White House’s communications office under presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

“He is driven by facts. That is so important in a crisis. You share what you know. You share how you became aware of it. That gives you a basis for a decision. He has been pragmatic,” Suarez said.

“He is maintaining balance by giving you hope, by demonstrating mastery of the issue, but at the same time, he is being realistic.”

Hogan’s three-stage plan to reopen Maryland is cautious. Stage one would end the stay-at-home order but would still require social distancing. Businesses that require close quarters or a lot of touching would likely remain closed. Hogan said golf courses could reopen but told Politico Thursday that it would be just 18 holes.

“I don’t see you being able to hang at the bar with your buddies in the clubhouse,” Hogan told Politico, “but I think you will be able to get out there and take a few swings in the grass in a safe way.”

When he does decide to reopen the 19th hole, it won’t be for political reasons. The governor has said he isn’t considering the politics, and Hogan watchers agree.

“I get the impression that Hogan would be doing this even if it was the last thing he did as an elected official,” Eberly said.

That pragmatic governing style may be just what the Republican party might need.

“There is still this sense that there needs to be an alternative voice to Trump and Trumpism. Say Trump loses in November and his grip on the GOP breaks, the party is going to be looking for something different,” Eberly said. “For the last four years, they have turned into this cult of personality. They will be looking for an actual philosophy of governing as opposed to following what the president says each day.”

By Ryan E. Little

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Seafood Industry Visa Fix Collides with Coronavirus

by

Share

With the aid of lawmakers, seafood businesses in Maryland, Virginia, Alaska and North Carolina last month won federal approval of an additional 35,000 visas for non-immigrant workers, but the timing couldn’t have been worse.

Within days, the coronavirus pandemic began shutting down businesses, including restaurants and retail outlets the seafood industry supplies.

Some seafood operations let employees go, while others have hired fewer people than they would in a more typical season.

John Martin, owner of the Martin Fish Co. in Ocean City, Maryland, told Capital News Service that a large percentage of the firm’s business is in the retail sector, including market and restaurant sales. Due to the virus, Martin Fish has been unable to open its retail store.

“We are now in the process of figuring out how to open with the safety of our workers and our customers in mind,” Martin said. “Currently, we have had to lay off a significant number of employees that are directly relating to those end-user groups.”

He added that this has been a lesson for his company: within weeks a global issue can affect the world food markets and he needs to be more prepared for that in the future.

Jack Brooks, president of J.M. Clayton Seafood Co. in Cambridge, Maryland, explained that the seafood industry is a seasonal business and the coronavirus has hit the hardest during the industry’s  prime time.

“We were planning on hiring between 65 to 70 workers for the season, but now that the markets have gone down we hired about 25 people,” Brooks said in an interview with CNS. “We sell our seafood to restaurants and with the restaurants being closed that has really hurt our business. We are taking this pandemic really seriously and are hoping that by next year we will be able to recover from the hard hits we have taken.”

The $2 trillion coronavirus aid package passed by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump last month includes $300 million for the nation’s fisheries industry.

The Maryland congressional delegation sent a letter on April 13 to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Chris Owen, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, requesting that the aid include companies that process fish products for restaurants and grocery stores.

Fishing and processing seafood is a more than $600 million industry in Maryland.

“A new economic analysis found that Maryland’s oyster aquaculture operations contribute an average of $9 million per year to the state economy and have grown by nearly 25 percent annually since 2012,” the lawmakers wrote. “However, that growth, as well as the mostly small and family-owned businesses that comprise Maryland’s seafood industry, is threatened due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.”

Whenever the seafood industry can go back to relatively normal operations, company officials say the long-term labor problems will remain, despite the visa relief given just before the pandemic struck.

Foreign seasonal workers come to work for the seafood industry each year with the help of the H-2B visas. Such workers are high in demand as these companies would not survive without them.

A study conducted by Maryland’s Best Seafood found that without the additional H-2B visas released each year, seafood processors would lose close to $49 million in sales. Maryland would lose 914 to 1,367 jobs and the overall hit to the state’s economy could reach $150 million.

A letter to the Department of Homeland Security signed by seven senators, including Maryland Democrats Chris Van Hollen and Ben Cardin, called the visas a “critical matter.”

“Local seafood businesses earn their livelihoods based on perishable products and need H-2B workers to harvest and process their respective seafood products so they can sell those products,” the senators wrote. “If these local businesses lose a customer base one year, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to come back into the industry.”

“The DHS grants a maximum of 66,000 visas to foreign nationals each year through the H-2B visa program, which is operated like a lottery,” the lawmakers said. “The workers are spread half-and-half to assist non-agricultural companies across the country between the first and second periods of the year.”

If companies don’t win workers through the lottery, they could be forced to stop business operations unless the DHS grants more visas for seasonal workers to shuck oysters,  process crabs and harvest salmon.

Maryland Delegate Chris Adams, R-Caroline, Dorchester, Talbot & Wicomico, said last month he still had concerns over the recurring shortages of seasonal workers in the industry, which he called “gut-wrenching.”

Van Hollen responded to Adams’s concerns, saying he realized “it’s hard when it seems like we’re doing this on a short-term basis rather than having a long-term solution.”

Van Hollen, Cardin and Rep. Andy Harris, R-Cockeysville, said they are working together to find this permanent fix.

by Nicole Weinstein

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Maryland Could Make Daylight Saving Time Permanent

by

Share

At 2 a.m. Sunday, hundreds of millions of Americans will “spring forward” one hour in the annual observance of Daylight Saving Time — gaining an hour of sunlight but losing an hour of sleep.

Some Maryland lawmakers are aiming to change that.

Whether it’s gaining an hour or losing an hour, the time change can be disruptive.

In the fall, the days feel shorter, sometimes leaving people to start and end their day in darkness. In the spring, when Daylight Saving Time begins with losing an hour, changes to sleep schedules can impact people in a variety of ways.

Legislation in the General Assembly would alter Maryland’s standard time to be Eastern Daylight Time year-round.

If passed, the legislation would be contingent on changes being made to the federal Uniform Time Act, which allows states to exempt themselves from observing Daylight Saving Time, but requires a change in federal law to remain on Daylight Saving Time year-round.

Currently, Hawaii and Arizona are the only two states that do not observe Daylight Saving Time.

“We have a whole host of reasons on why we do this daylight savings, but they all seem antiquated in theories,” said Delegate Brian Crosby, D-St. Mary’s, sponsor of House bill 1610. “When you start breaking down the data of why to not do it, that far outweighs why we do do it.”

The modern practice of observing Daylight Saving Time began with the Uniform Time Act in 1966.

According to a legislative analysis of the bill, the act was passed when the U.S. Department of Transportation was founded, giving the department regulatory power over time zones and Daylight Saving Time for transportation and commerce-related issues.

The first U.S. Daylight Saving Time was observed for energy conservation for seven months between 1918 and 1919 and year-round between 1942 and 1945, during World War I and World War II.

But a 1974 report by the U.S. Department of Transportation found the energy savings minimal, and a 2008 Department of Energy study found a total primary energy consumption reduction of 0.02%, according to the state legislative analysis.

Between 2015 and 2019, 39 states introduced legislation to abolish the observance, with many states seeking to keep their clocks set one hour ahead, according to data from the Congressional Research Service cited in the legislative analysis.

On March 11, President Donald Trump weighed in, tweeting “Making Daylight Saving Time permanent is O.K. with me!”

If the Maryland legislation passes, it would take effect the second Sunday in March or the first Sunday in November after the change is made to federal law, whichever occurs first.

Sen. Clarence Lam, D-Howard and Baltimore counties and a co-sponsor of Senate bill 517, which is expected to be heard Thursday, said he has heard the time change is considered outdated and not needed by some of the state’s agricultural communities. Crosby’s identical House bill does not yet have a hearing scheduled.

“In my district, we don’t have very many farms, so it seemed like it made sense to me to give a little bit more time in the day where there is daylight occurring,” Lam said.

Crosby pointed to published research that shows the detrimental health effects Daylight Saving Time can have on people. Studies show an increased chance of heart attacks, accidents while driving, increased work injuries and a temporary increase in suicides in the days after the spring time change.

“To me, it’s a quality-of-life issue,” he said.

Crosby also noted the effect the yearly time change can have on parents with children.

“Nobody likes getting their kids up for school the next day,” Crosby said. “I promise you, on March 9th, parents will be struggling to get their kids out the door.”

By Jeff Barnes

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.