I’m proud to serve as one of your state lawmakers in the Maryland General Assembly. We just wrapped up a challenging but highly productive 90-day legislative session that saw a record number of bills introduced and passed. Of the roughly 2,700 bills introduced in the legislature this year, over 1,000 were sent to Governor Wes Moore for his signature. Thirteen of the bills I sponsored passed the legislature and two have already been signed into law. Highlighted below are a selection of notable bills we passed during the 2024 legislative session.
The General Assembly passed a $63 billion budget for FY 2025 on a bipartisan basis. State support for education totals $9.1 billion, a 5.3% increase over last year. The state also made important new investments in child care, health care, public safety, and climate resiliency. In the aftermath of the tragic collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, we provided $275 million to assist impacted port workers and businesses. As part of the bill, scholarships will be provided for the children of the six construction workers who lost their lives on that fateful evening.
One of my leadership roles in the General Assembly is serving as Chair of the Early Childhood Subcommittee. The highest profile bill my subcommittee considered this year was the Freedom to Read Act, which was championed by House Speaker Adrienne Jones and will protect public libraries and school libraries from partisan book bans. I had the honor of defending the bill on the House floor. Another big accomplishment is the expansion of public pre-K and ensuring that 31,000 low-income children can continue to participate in high-quality child care with state scholarships. We also passed a bill to prohibit libraries from issuing fines to children, and a bill I sponsored to protect kids with food allergies while in child care settings.
The General Assembly passed many bills on K-12 and post-secondary education. Three bills I sponsored–and that passed–will require public middle and high schools to include the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline phone number on student ID cards and handbooks, require school districts to report on corrective actions in response to a state audit, and require more transparent forms of communication from districts. We also passed a bill to require greater transparency in school district budgeting. Another bill will require schools to implement safeguards when conducting an active shooter safety drill. We also addressed the rise in antisemitism and Islamophobia in schools by requiring anti-bias training for school employees. Among the legislation passed on higher education were bills prohibiting legacy admissions at public colleges and requiring community colleges to provide academic credit for immigrant students taking English learning courses.
This year’s legislative session was a momentous one in furthering fair and affordable housing. The General Assembly passed Governor Moore’s omnibus Renters’ Rights and Stabilization Act, which will help prevent tenant eviction. We passed bills to shield court records for rent cases that do not result in eviction, to require notice of utility bills in leases, and to grant tenants additional remedies in addressing uninhabitable living conditions. We also passed bills to incentivize local governments to increase both affordable and market-rate housing production (especially near transit) with new financing options and zoning flexibility, and to require local governments to publicly report on how much housing they are building (or not building). Lastly, significant budget investments were secured for housing programs, including for expanding home broadband access and down payment assistance.
In addition, the General Assembly passed all of the other priority bills sponsored by the Governor, including bills to:
Establish a Center for Firearm Violence Prevention and Intervention
Protect road workers from excessive speeding
Protect election officials from death threats and other harassment
Establish a grant program to help address child poverty
Incentivize data centers to locate in the state
Expand career opportunities for military spouses and law enforcement officers
Expand workers’ compensation for firefighters
The General Assembly also acted to further protect animals and the environment. Among the bills we passed on animal welfare are a ban on exotic animals in traveling circuses and my bill updating the state’s Endangered Species Act, which requires routine reviews of the state’s endangered species list and scientific evidence to list or delist a species. We passed bills to support community solar and to attract more wind energy companies to come to the state. We acted on bills fighting water pollution and PFAS contamination. We updated Maryland's energy efficiency program, introducing incentives for adopting efficient electric appliances and heating. We also passed bills to encourage electric vehicle charging stations in condo and HOA communities, grow pollinator habitats along state highways, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in manufacturing.
A number of bills passed to improve transportation across the state. Importantly, the House and Senate reached a compromise to close the overall transportation budget gap, preventing major cuts to road and bridge repairs, local road maintenance, and locally operated transit systems. The gap was filled through a variety of revenue reforms, including a fee for electric vehicles (which do not pay gas tax) and charging registration fees on a sliding scale based on vehicle weight. We also invested $150 million in WMATA to help prevent reductions in Metro rail and bus service. I’m proud to serve as Secretary of the legislature’s Transit Caucus, which was successful in passing several of our priority bills this year. Maryland’s pursuit of no roadway deaths will be furthered by a bill I sponsored that will require the Maryland Department of Transportation to hold quarterly public meetings to discuss infrastructure deficiencies on roads where there are pedestrian or bicyclist fatalities. The Caucus also succeeded in passing a bill to toughen criminal penalties for killing or injuring bicyclists. The legislature acted to strengthen penalties for street racing and to make it easier for low-income Marylanders, including those who are homeless, to get their license or ID card free of charge from the MVA. Lastly, the General Assembly passed a bill I sponsored that authorizes Montgomery County to use cameras to ticket noisy vehicles that have an illegally modified exhaust system.
The legislature acted on many bills concerning health and social services. More people will have access to care through the state’s health insurance market and school-based mental health providers will be able to reach 520,000 additional kids. We protected consumers by prohibiting liens from being placed on homes because of medical debt and granted the Attorney General greater power to crack down on health care fraud. We designated gender-affirming treatment as legally protected health care. We passed bills to grow our physician, nurse, and dentist workforce. We expanded health insurance coverage for hearing aids, prostheses, and pediatric dental care. Other notable bills expanded supplemental SNAP benefits for seniors, shored up funding for our 988 suicide hotline, expanded access to contraceptives, and required baby food to be tested for toxic metals. We prohibited vaping on mass transit and in public buildings. We created a “purple alert” (similar to amber alert for missing children) for missing people with disabilities. We also passed my district-mate Delegate Joe Vogel’s bill to provide children in foster care with luggage when they are moving to a new home.
On the subject of consumer and worker rights, we passed several major bills to require the posting of salary ranges on job listings, prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, crack down on third-party energy suppliers that use predatory bait-and-switch tactics, protect the online data of minors, and give consumers the right to opt out of targeted online advertising. The General Assembly passed my bill to ensure that Marylanders seeking employment, a mortgage, or a loan are not unfairly rejected based on outdated information in their credit reports. We required gas stations to display the credit price of gas if it’s higher than the cash price–an issue that Senator Cheryl Kagan has worked on for years. We protected consumers against price gouging in ticket sales for concerts and sporting events by requiring fees to be disclosed in the up-front price. We passed several workers rights bills prohibiting non-compete agreements among health care professionals, preventing the misclassification of home care workers, granting collective bargaining rights to library workers, and exempting federal government employees from work search requirements during government shutdowns. We also added military status to the list of protected classes under our housing and employment discrimination laws. Lastly, the legislature affirmed the federal Equal Rights Amendment as the 28th Amendment to the Constitution.
Several bills passed on criminal justice. The biggest was a juvenile justice reform bill which seeks to reduce juvenile crime by creating a commission to oversee the juvenile legal system and improving accountability for juvenile offenders who fail to meet diversionary program obligations. We passed a bill to create a correctional ombudsman’s office to investigate problems at jails and prisons. We banned machine gun conversion devices, aka “Glock switches,” and stripped gun manufacturers of civil immunity, empowering the Attorney General to take action against the industry for failing to make their firearms safe. We prohibited expunged criminal charges from appearing in consumer credit reports. We also required courts to redact the names of crime victims who are minors and made major reforms to the victim compensation process.
I have the pleasure of serving on the House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees the state’s election laws. A bill I sponsored with Senator Cheryl Kagan to tackle election judge shortages by allowing unemployed Marylanders to serve without impact to their unemployment benefits is awaiting the Governor’s signature. We also passed bills to modernize the election recount process and to address election disinformation. Tax policy is another major focus area for me and the committee. Notably, we expanded the tax on tobacco and vaping devices to fund the expansion of public pre-K and other education programs, as well as further reduce smoking. State Comptroller Brooke Lierman’s bills passed, including a bill to crack down on scam tax preparers and a bill to establish a tax credit eligibility awareness campaign. We also authorized local governments to establish property tax credits for public school employees and new housing construction. We expanded eligibility for the homeowner’s and renter’s tax credits and boosted funding for low-income tax clinics.
I serve as Chair of the Montgomery County House Delegation and I’m pleased to report that the county secured many wins in the state budget. Overall, Montgomery County will receive $1.3 billion in state aid, an 8.4% increase from last year. State funding for our public schools totals $979 million, an increase of $38.8 million. We secured $27 million for bus rapid transit and $2.7 million in new funding for park and school playground upgrades. Capital projects at Montgomery College, Shady Grove Medical Center, and the Institute for Health Computing were among the many county priorities that received significant state funding. Many of District 17’s local bond requests received funding: Bohrer Park and Walder Park in Gaithersburg, David Scull Park in Rockville, and capital projects for EveryMind (the county’s 988 mental health call center) and the Chinese Culture and Community Service Center.
Thank you to all of the residents of Gaithersburg and Rockville who contacted my office this session. Your visits, phone calls, letters, and emails are appreciated. Have questions about topics I didn’t address in this letter? Please reach out and ask! Even though the legislative session is over, my legislative office will continue to operate. Please reach out if there is anything I can do to assist you with state agencies or to share your opinion.
Best,
Julie Palakovich Carr
State Delegate, District 17 (Gaithersburg and Rockville)