Maryland lawmakers weighed hundreds of bills Monday, debating and passing controversial public safety and energy legislation to ensure it has a better chance of making it to Gov. Wes Moore’s desk by the end of session.
Monday marked Crossover Day, which is the deadline for a bill to pass its chamber of origin to guarantee it receives a hearing in the opposite chamber. House and Senate members in the General Assembly labored long hours to put themselves in the best position to move through the final three weeks of Maryland’s 90-day legislative session.
Energy
The House chamber kicked off what was poised to be a long day of legislating with a debate on House Bill 829, which would require an applicant for a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity, which is needed for construction of an overhead transmission line, to include analyses of alternatives to the proposed transmission line, route selection and the use of advanced transmission technologies and whether its use will delay or avoid future upgrades.
The Public Service Commission, which reviews these applications, cannot take final action until it considers all of the analyses required under the bill.
House Minority Leader Jason Buckel, who represents Allegany County, offered an amendment to prevent the Public Service Commission from issuing the certificate until the construction has been approved by the local governing bodies in each county that would have any portion of the proposed line in their jurisdiction.
Buckel said Monday that the amendment would give localities “much more influence over the process” than they currently have.
“You can’t keep forcing all of the problems in the state on a handful of jurisdictions,” he said.
Montgomery County Del. Lorig Charkoudian, a Democrat and the bill’s sponsor, pushed against the Republican proposal, arguing that allowing that kind of veto authority would make it more challenging to build transmission lines and lead to higher electricity rates.
Buckel countered that people who live in larger, more urban counties would be upset if transmission lines came through there, too.
“You’ll find when you go do it where you live that people who say they want green energy will jump up and howl in opposition like you just stepped on their foot because they don’t want the transmission line coming through their neighborhood,” he said. “And they don’t want the windmill next to their property, and they don’t want the nuclear power plant down the street from their school — they just want it to be in places where other people live, and that’s not right.”
The House voted against Buckel’s amendment and gave the bill preliminary approval.
The House also passed House Bill 121, or the Utility Transparency and Accountability Act, would require each electric company — not including municipal electric utilities — to submit a report to the Public Service Commission by Feb. 1 every year on each recorded vote cast by an electric company at a meeting of a regional transmission organization.
PJM is the regional transmission organization for Maryland, and most electric companies in the state are members, according to the bill’s fiscal note. But under current state law, votes are not required to be disclosed.
The measure sponsored by Charkoudian aims to increase transparency and give lawmakers more information about whether electric companies are voting for the public interest or for their own shareholder return interests, she said at a January bill hearing.
The legislation passed the House on Monday in a 128 to 8 vote. The cross-filed version of the bill, sponsored by Sen. Katie Fry Hester, a Democrat who represents Montgomery and Howard counties, passed through the Senate in late February.
Criminal justice
During its second session of the day, House lawmakers passed the Maryland Second Look Act, which would allow certain people to file motions to reduce their prison sentences.
The bill, sponsored by Baltimore County Democrat Del. Cheryl Pasteur, applies to people who have served at least 20 years in prison who were either convicted as adults for a crime committed when they were a minor or people who were convicted of crimes committed when they were between 18 and 25 years old.
Under the legislation, these individuals could file a motion to reduce their sentence. The court can reduce that person’s sentence if that person isn’t a danger to the public or if a reduced sentence would better serve justice.
During a two-hour debate Saturday, Republicans offered nearly a dozen amendments to the measure, all of which were rejected.
On Monday, Del. Marlon Amprey, a Baltimore City Democrat who voted in favor of the legislation, emphasized that the bill gives people not only a second look at their cases but also an opportunity to turn their lives around.
“Let’s remember: many people, many people who get this second chance do more than just give back to their own family, do more than just turn their lives around,” he said. “They often make it their life’s work to improve the communities in which they live and to improve everyone’s lives.”
The final vote on the legislation wasn’t strictly along party lines, though. Del. C.T. Wilson, a Charles County Democrat who has long advocated for victims, voted against the bill, saying that he couldn’t see that every person is redeemable.
“I pray that each of you understand why I cannot sit here and now fight for the rights of murderers when their victims lie rotting away in silence, forgotten, and many times by this body,” he said.
The measure passed the House in an 89-49 vote.
Taxes
Maryland lawmakers walked into the 2025 session knowing they would be battling a $3 billion and growing budget deficit, which has been exacerbated by President Donald Trump’s policies.
Though the budget was not among the slew of bills debated in either chamber Monday, Moore drew a hard line on a new tax policy proposed by the General Assembly’s Democratic supermajority.
Addressing the press Monday afternoon, Moore said he would not sign off on legislation to implement a “broad” 2.5% sales tax for business-to-business services.
Members of the Moore administration provided vague details of what the governor meant by “broad,” saying that it could also apply to services that independent consumers pay for, but clarifying that the bill, in its original posture, would not move forward.
The governor also said he would not approve legislation to implement a new 2-cent-per-ounce excise tax on distributors of sugary beverages, powders and syrups.
Immigration
Late Monday morning into the afternoon, the Senate moved through mountains of bills, passing several pieces of immigration reform legislation without discussion.
In response to executive orders issued by Trump, Democrats in the General Assembly have filed several bills intended to increase protections for Maryland’s immigrant community from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee Chair Will Smith, a representative of Montgomery County, sponsored the Protecting Sensitive Locations Act, which would prohibit Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers from entering schools, public libraries, health facilities, and shelters unless they obtain a warrant from a state or federal judge. That bill passed the Senate during its first floor session Monday on a vote of 30-13.
Also passed early in the day was legislation sponsored by Smith and Senate President Pro Tem Malcolm Augustine, a Democrat from Prince George’s County, to expand qualifications for Maryland’s nonimmigrant status petitions, which are filed on behalf of non-U.S. residents who assist law enforcement in investigating crime. Their bill passed on a vote of 32-12 with no debate.
In the late afternoon, Senate Republicans unsuccessfully attempted to amend legislation sponsored by Smith that would prohibit state and local government and law enforcement from entering into agreements with ICE that would require them to allow its officers to access databases for immigration enforcement unless they have a warrant.
Sen. Johnny Mautz, a Republican from the Eastern Shore, attempted to change the bill to provide exemptions for people who have been convicted of violent crimes or gang activity.
“I’m a Christian — I’m a believer, everyone is God’s creation — but nothing in that says that your data should be protected,” Mautz said on the floor.
Smith asked the chamber to resist Mautz’s amendments, noting that even more progressive counties are cooperating with ICE.
“We are cooperating in the interest of public safety, and we will continue to do that in Maryland,” Smith said.
The bill received preliminary approval Monday afternoon without Mautz’s amendments.
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