End of Session Update + Victories

Written By Katie Wenger

Congratulations! The Maryland General Assembly session ended on Monday, April 13, and we achieved several important victories with our allies!

These bills which we supported passed:

  • Healthy Homes/Climate: We won $73 million in the budget for clean, healthy, affordable heat pumps in homes!  Read more here.

  • Immigration: The Data Privacy Act (HB711) passed both chambers and is awaiting the Governor’s signature!

    • Our leaders met with legislators about this bill, attended the hearing, and sent emails supporting it.

    • Read more here.

  • Immigration: The bill ending the practice of local police acting as ICE, also known as 287(g) agreements, passed and was signed! (SB245)

  • Immigration: The Community Trust Act (SB791) passed both chambers!

    • The bill gained momentum in the last five days of the session after a big push from advocates.

    • Read more here.

  • Housing: The Bring Back Main Street Act (SB829) passed both chambers as a study.

    • This bill will study how to legalize homes in commercial districts and give recommendations for future legislation.

This bill which we helped improve passed:

  • Healthy Homes/Climate: The Utility RELIEF Act (HB1532) passed and was signed.

    • We support some of the provisions in the final bill, which aim to make energy cleaner and more affordable.

    • While we opposed the bill’s cuts to the EmPOWER energy efficiency program, we successfully advocated to reduce these cuts and ensure the final bill held corporate utilities accountable. 

    • Read more here.

This bill did not pass:

  • Housing: The Starter & Silver Homes Act (SB36) did not pass.

    • This bill would have made it easier to build smaller, less expensive homes to make homeownership more accessible.

    • Read more here about our advocacy for this bill.

This bill which our partners supported passed:

  • Housing: The Transit and Housing Opportunity Act (HB894) passed both chambers and is awaiting the Governor's signature!

    • While this was not one of our priority bills, our partner Greater Greater Washington advocated for its passage.

    • This bill will make it possible to build over 7,000 new homes near rail stations by eliminating parking requirements and giving the Maryland Department of Transportation more flexibility over how to use state-owned property.

Great work! Our members sent over 1,300 emails supporting our legislative priorities, and over 50 of us went to Annapolis to meet with legislators or attend hearings. Over 450 of our members participated in this year’s statewide campaign overall. And that’s in a year when we scaled back our involvement in Annapolis to focus on our county-level candidate forums!

We hope you all feel proud of everything you helped accomplish this year. A special congratulations to our Healthy Homes team, our Immigration team, and our Housing team for all your work. And congratulations to our partner organizations CASA, Interfaith Power & Light, Sierra Club, and Greater Greater Washington, and others.

We’ll keep you updated additional bills are signed by Governor Moore over the next 30 days.

Thank you again for organizing with us so that more people can live in safety, breathe clean air, and afford housing in Maryland!

Katie Wenger
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Community Trust Act Passes!