Legislative Agenda 2020

Priority Legislation Issues

1. Kirwan Commission
2. Single Payer Healthcare
3. Prevent further construction of Concentrated Animal Feeding Organization (CAFO) on the Eastern Shore
4. End of Life Act
5. Correctional Facilities and Police Officers – Immigration status
6. Transitioning services for young people with disabilities who have become adults to help them get jobs.  

 Other Supported Legislation 

 Education 

• Fair funding for school construction
• Banning BOOST voucher for programs that discriminate

 Environment 

• A Green New Deal, which will include updates for generation of power, retrofitting of buildings, transportation, agriculture and housing 
• Community Choice Aggregation, which will be enabling legislation for each county that will allow them to aggregate their rate payers to negotiate for better rates and for the kind of energy (solar, wind, fossil fuel) that their residents want to use
• Carbon Collection, (a tax on carbon) which will raise money for Kirwan and other environmental projects
• Transition from Black Liquor and Incineration, which will look to close coal fired power plants and transition away from incineration
• Zero-energy houses, with an emphasis on offering zero-rate loans to builders that build zero-energy homes
• All legislation addressing Concentrated Animal Feeding Organization (CAFO) for the Eastern Shore
• Incentives for more electric vehicles, including buses and police vehicles
• Pipeline hazard and safety bills to make it harder to build pipelines in the state
• Green Amendment
• Ban on Chlorpyrifos, the bee killing pesticides

Elections and Democracy

• Constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United decision
• Constitutional amendment to protect abortion rights
• Campaign Finance Reform
• Additional Disclosures and inclusion of bank statements with campaign finance reports
• Ranked Choice Voting
• Publicly funded elections (Wicomico County) 
• Voting by Mail
• Requirement for Presidential candidates to file tax returns
• Any bills aimed at securing the vote for 2020
• Any bills that will help get more people to fill out the census

Common-sense Gun Reform

• Background checks for long guns
• A ban on 3D printed guns and guns with no serial number
• Restriction of firearm sales near schools
• Liability for manufacturers of guns
• Re-definition of domestic terrorism to include mass shootings
• Overturn the veto on the Handgun advisory board

Health Care 

• Opioid Abuse support for victims of the crisis
• Insulin price reduction and legislation affecting the need for emergency supplies of insulin

Transportation -

• Any Bill that improves public Transportation on the Shore. 
• Creation of an Inspector General for P3s

Social and Economic Justice - 

• Immigration – 
  • Override of the Dream Act Veto
  • Public Information Act 
  • Trust Act 
  • Banning Correctional Facilities and Police Officers from asking about Immigration status
  • Prevention of the use of driver’s license pictures by ICE 
  • Plans to make courthouses, schools, etc. safer from ICE
  • Ending Racial profiling at traffic stops
• Housing – 
  • Housing for All, which includes tenant protections, affordable housing and zoning changes that allow for duplexes, triplexes and quarterplexes
  • Just cause evictions
• Disability Rights – 
  • Make it easier to sue businesses that violate Maryland's accessibility law
  • Department of Education Trauma approach for medically fragile kids
• Women's Rights – 
  • Protect abortion rights 
• LGBTQ Rights – 
  • Administrative name/gender change rights
• Criminalization of Poverty – 
  • Debtor's Bill of Rights (tying the debt exemption to minimum wage like other states do) 
  • Debt collection – exemptions from attachment
  • Wage protection – retaliation – protections for $15 minimum wage
  • Bail reform
  • Child tax credit for low income families
  • Collective bargaining for community college workers
  • Statewide collective bargaining for local government workers 
  • Overtime for low-income salaried employees
• Criminal Justice Reform –
  • Ban the Box veto override
  • Eliminating the Unit Rule 
  • Pretrial release monitoring systems (GPS systems vs incarceration)
  • Redeem Act
  • Pretrial release – Reimbursement of Special Costs
  • Marijuana legalization
  • Parole reform
  • End of minor solitary confinement