Wes Moore

Sharon Murphy, who retired as director of the veterans home in 2021, will serve as interim director while the department looks to hire someone new.

It’s spring the year before a Baltimore election — meaning consultants, elected officials and their potential challengers are quietly maneuvering to identify viable candidates.

Maryland lawmakers quietly added $2 million for emergency rental assistance in the final hours of budget negotiations on Friday — a fraction of what housing advocates have said will be necessary to avoid a mounting eviction crisis in the state.

A boisterous crowd gathered at the State House to celebrate significant progress this year — a new law will expand coverage for gender-affirming care for people with Medicaid insurance — but they noted that much more work is ahead in making the state safe and inclusive for trans Marylanders.

On Thursday, delegates and senators wouldn’t meet face-to-face to hash out differences on education spending. By Friday, they’d reached a deal.

As a condition of the 43-4 confirmation vote in the Maryland Senate, lawmakers will withhold a small portion of the budget for Butler’s office until he submits reports on his progress toward reform.

The Child Victims Act will lift all age limits and time limits for filing lawsuits against institutions such as churches and schools for enabling child sexual abuse. And it undoes a tricky legal maneuver called a “statute of repose” that some believe was snuck into a prior bill, which had the effect of actually insulating institutions from older legal claims.

Maryland lawmakers have hit an impasse in their budget negotiations over $2 million for a private school tuition program, the first sign of friction this year in the State House, which is entirely Democratic-run for the first time in eight years.

The new library — at 100,000 square feet — will be at least twice the size of any other facility in the county library system and include an auditorium, a literacy classroom, flexible community space and a digital lab. The building was designed by English architect Thomas Heatherwick, and construction is expected to begin as soon as 2026.

Correctional officers have alleged that the state only paid them for the hours they were scheduled to work, not the hours they actually worked. The U.S. Department of Labor has been investigating the claims.

Del. Brian Crosby, a Democrat from Southern Maryland, said that while the legislation won’t necessarily prevent problems at state facilities, it will enable officials to address them more quickly.

After a Senate committee voted for Lt. Col. Roland Butler as superintendent of the state police, his nomination will go before the full 47-member Senate.

After Lt. Col. Roland Butler fielded questions before a Senate committee, the chair said: “I couldn’t tell you tonight if he’d had the votes.”

Inspection reports detailed patient care issues as early as 2018, but Hogan administration officials said replacing the contractor would have been ‘grossly irresponsible’

Maryland State Police Lt. Col. Roland Butler has a confirmation hearing in the Maryland Senate, where he’ll hope to win enough support to be approved as the agency’s superintendent.

The Trans Health Equity Act, which appears headed for final passage, would require Maryland Medicaid to cover gender-affirming care and procedures for transgender patients.

The Moore-Miller transition team gathered input from more than 5,000 Marylanders to identify the state’s biggest challenges, develop solutions and help set priorities, says Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller, who chaired the transition team.

While all of the governor’s bills remain in play with three weeks to go in the annual legislative session, some of them have been altered or whittled down by lawmakers.

As the dust settled on a flurry of lawmaking, here’s where some key initiatives stood.

Political goings-on from Baltimore and around the state.