This Thursday is the deadline to drop "blue backs" in the hopper . We know that bill drafting is feeling the pressure as we received one of our drafts back at 7:32am on Sunday morning! Everyone is working hard to meet the deadline! I was happy to sponsor a room for Family Tree this week! Family Tree is a nonprofit that does the important work of preventing child abuse and building stronger families throughout Maryland.

On Wednesday I had two bill hearings in front of the Ways & Means committee. The first bill that I presented was HB142. This bill will give those with mobility issues or who are accompanied by people that require extra assistance voting order priority. If you would like to watch the testimony, you can find it here: HB142 Testimony  * The second bill that I presented was HB140 which would require that petitions and ballot questions are written following plain language guidelines. To watch the hearing, click here: HB140 Testimony *  *The links will take you to all of the testimony from that afternoon. If you hover your mouse over the yellow dots just above the blue bar, it will tell you what bill is being heard so that you can find the testimony that you are looking for and you can avoid scrolling through to find the testimony you are interested in.

I am looking forward to working with advocates from Advocates for Children and Youth on two bills this session. Both bills address issues within the foster care community. HB754 will help foster care students that have been bounced around different schools that may have different requirements for graduation. As long as the student has the appropriate credits to meet the state standard for graduation they will be allowed to graduate. The second bill is a foster care reporting bill which is requiring the Department of Education to report the educational progress and graduation rates of children in the foster care system. BILL HEARING THIS WEEK: House Bill 383 will be heard this Friday, February 7th at 1:00pm in the Ways & Means Committee. This bill will require that performance data currently being distributed by MSDE is dis-aggregated not only by IEP (IDEA) status but also by 504 (ADA) status for public transparency, policy decisions, and accountability. If you are interested in testifying on behalf of the bill, please contact my office at (410) 841-3793. You can find the text of the bill here: HB383 text

The women of the General Assembly celebrated the 100 year anniversary of the right to vote on National Suffragette Day!