The Maryland General Assembly session launched Wednesday with gleeful Democrats maintaining control but holding larger supermajorities in both chambers and eager to work with an incoming Democratic governor who agrees with them on major policy issues.
The state government has a multibillion-dollar budget surplus as Democrats start to prioritize a laundry list of policy ideas they hope to notch in the new term.
“In this moment, we’re setting down a path that impacts not just this year, but a decade,” Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) told the chamber, adding that “we are turning the page” from being consumed by the pandemic.
Surrounded by political dignitaries and their own family members, state lawmakers convened at noon for a 90-day marathon of lawmaking. The Republican minority is poised to fight a swing to the left while Democrats seek to put abortion rights into Maryland’s constitution, curtail gun access and set up the state’s newly approved recreational marijuana industry. By Wednesday afternoon, 253 bills had been formally introduced and sent to committees.
