Everyone believed that 2020 would be The Year of the Woman (and it certainly was in many ways) but no one foresaw that it would become The Year of the Coronavirus. By New Year’s Day, China had announced a cluster of strange, pneumonia-like cases “of unknown causes” in Wuhan, the capital of China’s Hubei province, 650 miles from Beijing. On January 3, before any deaths, China provided details to the World Health Organization (WHO), which announced the cluster on January 5. On January 9—the day after the Maryland General Assembly convened its 2020 session—China had determined that the cause was not pneumonia but rather a novel coronavirus, COVID-19 (“Corona Virus Disease 2019” or “SARS-CoV-2”). The U.S. announced the first case on January 22; and when President Donald Trump imposed travel restrictions to and from China on January 31, there were nine confirmed cases in the U.S., although very little testing had been done. By February 26, the WHO was tracking more daily cases outside of China than within. On March 16, Maryland’s General Assembly adjourned three weeks early—for the first time since the Civil War—without a legally recognized plan for continuing the legislative session virtually. As the pandemic forced schools and colleges across the country to send students home for online instruction, often with parents working remotely while taking care of their children—there were more than 150,000 global cases and close to 6,000 deaths, with the U.S. accounting for over 3,000 cases (2 percent) and 60 deaths (1 percent).
Recap of the 2020 Legislative Session
Before leaving, legislators passed almost 700 bills within a $48 billion fiscal year 2021 budget, including the Kirwan Commission’s “Blueprint for Maryland’s Future,” a 10-year package of educational reforms costing several billion dollars. Legislators approved over $2 billion for additional school construction through bonds that casino money would pay for. Another bill would refurbish horse racing facilities at Pimlico and Laurel Park with $375 million in bonds issued by the Maryland Stadium Authority, also drawing on casino-generated funds. After a third major bill allocated hundreds of millions of dollars to Governor Larry Hogan to fight the pandemic’s spread—including $50 million from Maryland’s “rainy day” fund and up to $100 million more from state reserves to counter a spike in unemployment claims (supplemented by congressional support), expand COVID-19 testing, and increase executive authority to declare and preside over a “catastrophic health emergency”—Governor Hogan paid $9 million for 500,000 test kits from South Korea and $8 million for 250,000 rapid point-of-care antigen tests from Becton, Dickinson, and Company.
When soaring pandemic costs threatened to prematurely deplete Maryland’s fiscal year 2020 budget—shortfall projections ranged from $1 billion to $2.8 billion (by Comptroller Peter Franchot)—Hogan halted state agency discretionary spending, froze state hiring, and vetoed 22 bills that mandated increased funding, including the Kirwan bill and almost $600 million for Maryland’s historically black colleges and universities. Favoring spending cuts over job losses, Hogan argued that “The economic fallout from this pandemic simply makes it impossible to fund any new programs.” Soon after, an African American named George Floyd died when a Minnesota policeman knelt on his neck for eight minutes, setting off nationwide protests that grew in intensity, confrontations, and violence between people and police, citizens and government officials, and partisan ideologies, with little to no social distancing or mask wearing.
Seven months after the General Assembly departed prematurely last March, the U.S. had almost eight million COVID-19 cases and 225,000 deaths, with roughly 130,000 cases and 4,000 deaths in Maryland. The U.S.—about 5 percent of the world’s population—now had 20 percent of the 40 million cases and one million deaths globally. Although these numbers will change by the time the next Legislative Session begins (some are predicting they will double), 2020 will now be remembered for a mass police reform movement while a pandemic caused the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, as 3.5 percent unemployment in both the U.S. and Maryland skyrocketed to nearly 15 percent nationwide and more than doubled in Maryland to 7.6 percent.
To address these and other complicated issues, we spoke to Adrienne Jones, Speaker of the House of Delegates (D-District 10); Sheree Sample-Hughes, Speaker Pro Tempore of the House of Delegates (D-District 37A); Eric Luedtke, House Majority Leader (D-District 14); Delegate Shaneka Henson (D-District 30A); Melony Griffith, Senate President Pro Tempore (D-District 25); Senator Adelaide Eckardt (R-District 37); Senator Sarah Elfreth (D-District 30); Senator Cory McCray (D-District 45), the former Acting Chair—now Vice Chair—of the Maryland Democratic Party; and Dirk Haire, Maryland Republican Party Chair.
Luedtke and Griffith sit on the Senate Spending Affordability Committee; Griffith, Eckardt, Elfreth, and McCray sit on the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee; Luedtke sits on the House Ways and Means Committee; Henson sits on the House Appropriations Committee; and Hughes sits on both the House Health and Government Operations Committee and, with Luedtke, on the Joint Covid-19 Response Legislative Work Group.
Issues That the 2021 Legislative Session Will Focus On
COVID-19
Although the legislature adjourned early last year, it didn’t stop working. “The 2020 interim was the busiest in my 18 years in elected office,” Sen. Griffith said. Sen. Elfreth agreed: “We’ve had virtual committee hearings non-stop on all things ‘corona’ to get ready for January.” How to hold a formal session during a continued pandemic, especially online, is still being finalized, according to Elfreth, “First and second readings of bills can be virtual but third readings must be in-person.” They may use Plexiglas partitions, Sen. Eckardt said, “but we have to look at what other jurisdictions have done to identify air flow quality specifications. While one option is to hold small meetings in different places, the biggest concern people have right now is that bill drafting and hearings will have no public input. This is not only non-traditional but possibly unconstitutional. To not have discussion about that is a little troubling.”
Once they decide on how to proceed, COVID-19-related issues will be at the forefront. According to Griffith, “The virus has had a disparate effect on communities of color who have less access to health care to start with and who live in food deserts, which made getting medical services and healthy groceries difficult when unemployment went up and stay-at-home orders were issued.” This was especially true for “the Latinx population, which had the highest infection and death rates,” Del. Henson said. “Federal funds to assist with coronavirus consequences must get to those who need it the most,” Griffith promised. House of Delegates Speaker Adrienne Jones agreed. “We need to expand demographic data on the uninsured, provide equity and anti-bias training and accreditation for health workers, and improve health outcomes for patients of color.”
Unemployment Benefits: The pandemic caused the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, as ] unemployment skyrocketed in both the U.S. and Maryland. Starting in mid-March, over 10,000 people began filing unemployment claims each week, peaking at 33,000 weekly applications in July before beginning a descent that didn’t dip below 10,000 weekly submissions until August, according to The Baltimore Business Journal. Although by October the unemployment rate decreased to about 8 percent nationally and 7 percent in Maryland, for most of 2020, unemployed Marylanders depended on both the state’s unemployment payout and the supplemental benefit provided by the national government that ran out when negotiations between Congress and the White House to renew them failed. “The unemployment system did not work ideally,” Sen. Griffith conceded. Luedtke agreed: “We need to shore up the unemployment system. Our hope is that the new Congress will work with the federal government to help the states. In Maryland, we need to assist small businesses, employees working in nursing homes and other health industry jobs, and people living in affordable housing.”
Nursing homes: The elderly have been a particularly vulnerable population during the pandemic, both in general and in Maryland’s many long-term care facilities. Del. Sample-Hughes stated, “I will be re-introducing the Residential Services Agency Bill requiring that licensed providers are trained in handling, first of all, cases of dementia; three hours initially and then two hours each year thereafter. The public assumes they have had that kind of training but it’s not widespread because it’s not mandatory. Negative physical and emotional reactions among nursing home residents are being triggered by misunderstandings and even fear when a staff member says or does something counter to what is appropriate to the needs of those in their care.” A second issue is Alzheimer’s Disease. “The Department of Public Health has strongly emphasized these types of training, especially now that we’ve seen how an unforeseen pandemic affects the ability to provide ‘normal’ services,” she said. Third, nursing homes “need more guidance on COVID-19 testing and if someone passes from the virus so that proper procedures are followed for how a body is handled and then transported to a funeral home.” Sen. Eckardt is concerned that “our nursing homes and assisted living facilities will even survive. They’ve endured bad press but an increased need for their services. Their residents’ societal isolation has increased and that needs to be addressed. How can we ensure that they have adequate resources so that people don’t get discouraged with the entire health industry?”
Rental units: Those who rent low and middle-income housing have been particularly hard hit by the quarantine. “The coronavirus forced people to stay indoors, so the quality of affordable residential homes became a top issue,” Del. Henson said. “Mold causes respiratory issues that are then magnified by COVID-19 and vice versa, compounded by inferior air ducts and faulty electrical wiring. Multi-family rental properties have the biggest problems; last year, Annapolis was sued over discrimination-related issues such as home inspections where either inspectors refused to enter multi-family dwellings or inspected them so rapidly that they failed to find subpar housing conditions. I am re-introducing the Indoor Air Quality Bill that didn’t make it out of last year’s session. It will have a ‘Tenants’ Bill of Rights’ clause allowing residents to self-report violations and submit a ‘video inspection’ by remote recording using their phones or any other method determined by different jurisdictions. One thing we did last year was change the laws that allowed for uneven inspection standards for public vs. private housing; now all units must be treated equally. Next, we’ll eliminate the different inspection criteria for multi-family vs. single-family communities.”
Addiction Assistance: During a pandemic, when people must socially-distance or even stay at home and thus cannot interact with loved ones and friends, substance abuse becomes an even bigger problem. Over 40 percent of Maryland’s methadone clinics are in Baltimore. Sen. McCray represents the city and will be introducing four bills requiring greater transparency from the three primary players: The national government, the Maryland Department of Health, and Baltimore city. “The federal-state-community relationships are not clear as to what their specific roles are,” he said. “Each methadone clinic serves thousands of people while their operators donate to elected officials to influence local zoning and other potential obstacles to their ability to remain open and be eligible for funding. We need to make sure that the necessary requirements are being met and applied to all behavioral health organizations.”
Covid-19 Recovery Package: According to Speaker Jones, all of these issues will be addressed in the upcoming that will be introduced as a relief bill for Maryland state residents. “The number one complaint we received from our constituents was the record number of unemployment claims, and now unemployment is on the rise again, so we’ve prepared a Covid-19 Recovery Package with input from all of our committees that will address unemployment and help families and businesses get back on their feet, provide assistance for renters and home owners, expand access to broadband, strengthen telework policies, and improve conditions for essential employees.”
Law Enforcement Reform
“We must have police accountability,” Sen. Elfreth stated. Sen. Griffith will be chairing a Senate work group that will focus on Equity and Inclusion. “Systemic racism must also be addressed, she said. According to Sen. Eckardt, police reform, social justice, and race disparity issues must target the most affected members of society, adding, “I think we’ll see a lot of creative ideas in this session that will need a great deal of input so that they’ll be vetted thoroughly enough to move forward.” One creative idea was to establish a House Police and Accountability Reform Work Group, which Speaker Jones said recommended that “deaths of suspects attributed to police actions be independently reviewed so that public scrutiny could be increased while maintaining the Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights.” Other recommendations included banning chokeholds and requiring anti-bias training.
Education
The “Blueprint for Maryland’s Future”: The Kirwan Commission’s bill to create a new educational funding formula to inject $1 billion into public schools over three years was vetoed by Governor Larry Hogan. “Overturning this decision is one of our biggest veto priorities,” Sen. Elfreth said.
According to Sen. Eckardt, “In Sen. Nancy King’s amendment, if the economy reduced by 7 percent or more, Kirwan wouldn’t get implemented; the economy fell more than 10 percent. Not all of ‘Phase 1’ passed last year, but 2021 was going to be ‘Phase 2.’ Everything will be re-evaluated. Local jurisdictions are re-assessing where they are and where they want to go. Will COVID-19 completely transform the educational structure in unanticipated ways? What’ll happen to educational funding formulas if kids aren’t in school? What new online technologies and learning models will develop? Can a virtual, multiple-county consortium provide a quality virtual education that meets all current standards? The next two to three years will be difficult budget battles; we lost four months of gasoline taxes and casino revenue is way down, so what happens to the expected educational funding levels? This is not a delay but a pause until we can leverage more federal dollars. The biggest immediate challenge is that our children and citizens need access to broadband so that they can learn and work from home. I’ll be introducing a bill to ‘Connect Maryland’ by bringing together all elements of connectivity both within and outside Maryland, such as the federal government, that will be multi-organizational.” Del. Sample-Hughes agreed. “What I continually hear from constituents and colleagues is Maryland’s lack of broadband access. Some places have it, some don’t. Speaker Jones has emphasized that schools must have the technology they need. A lack of broadband access obviously complicates learning from home. People are struggling, so we have to make sure that we do this right.”
HBCUs: According to Sen. Luedtke, “Kirwan is a 10-year plan. I’m more concerned short-term with overturning the Governor’s veto of the HBCUs funding bill.” Del. Sample-Hughes added, “I meet regularly with the University of Maryland Eastern Shore’s president. Historically black colleges and universities are grappling with the veto’s funding cuts. They needed that revenue in order to offer vital programs.”
Transportation
“It’s not just the Education Trust that’s underfunded,” cautions Sen. McCray, who sits on the Environment and Transportation Committee. “The Transportation Trust Fund has lost a significant amount of revenue. That will affect the Purple Line, road, and infrastructure needs like aging bridges, and BWI’s financial support. There were cuts to Maryland’s Department of Transportation and Transit Administration, even though ridership has not decreased during the pandemic.” Sen. Griffith agrees. “Driving commute times are already excessive,” she said. “We need to get people out of their cars and back to their homes and communities; otherwise, they have less time to help their kids with homework and engage in civic activities. I don’t expect recent shortfalls to be addressed in the 2021 session; transportation solutions involve long-term planning, but what we can do is create economic centers around existing transit stations that create jobs and generate revenue to help restore the appropriate levels of funding.”
Democracy
Redistricting: “The top issue for Republicans in both chambers is redistricting,” said state party chairman Dirk Haire. “Census completion is the key, so creating new district boundaries may need to be done later, in a special session. We also need new legislation to pare back gerrymandering.”
Voting: Del. Luedtke wants to introduce the “Voter Empowerment Act” aimed at specific demographics that face voting challenges such as students and military personnel overseas and senior citizens. He wants to improve the ability to vote electronically and in-person at school campuses set up proactively. “These are Maryland’s next steps toward becoming the best state when it comes to voting,” he said. Sen. Elfreth agrees: “The primary season saw a record turnout without fraud. Now we need to specify regulations for mail-in voting and other election-related issues.” Speaker Jones pointed out that “The pandemic gave us time to think of ways to engage voters. Two things we can do are establish a permanent process to vote by mail and to expand early voting sites across Maryland.”
Conclusion
Other topics to consider: Del. Henson wants to make sure childcare centers have the same quality inspection standards as schools, nursing homes, and rental units; Del. Luedtke expects more progress in restoring the health of the Chesapeake Bay, such as reducing single-use plastics and better oyster management; and Del. Sample-Hughes would like to see Maryland finally retire its Civil War-themed state song that praises the Confederacy and criticizes Abraham Lincoln. “Nationwide, now’s the time,” she said. “It’s not a new idea but there’s a new opportunity. People want change. This bill will be heard in my committee. It’s a repeal, not a repeal and replace—it’s just a first step. Moving on to new lyrics or a different song will happen later.”
Meanwhile, a Reconstruction-like effort will be needed to rebuild Maryland’s economy. “We need COVID-resilience,” Sen. Eckardt said. “Supporting our restaurants and retailers, thinking about how local economies can sustain themselves for the foreseeable future, and creating regional councils of local communities working together.”
If 2020 went from The Year of the Woman to The Year of Coronavirus, hopefully 2021 will be The Year We Rise; however, Sen. Griffith warns that “Maryland’s post-COVID-19 recovery will be our top priority but it’s a difficult path to chart because we don’t know if our legislative session will be on the ‘recovery’ side of the year 2021.” Indeed, it is difficult to be overly optimistic after a once-in-a-lifetime calamity, nationwide protests, and economic hardship all came together to create a perfect storm of despair, but I’m inspired by something Abraham Lincoln said while giving the Emancipation Proclamation: “I hereby enjoin upon the people…to be free to abstain from all violence…and I recommend to them, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.” That might make a great song.
Mark Croatti, who teaches American Government and Comparative Politics at the United States Naval Academy and the George Washington University, has covered Maryland’s Legislative Session since 2004.
