Summary

In 2025, we made amazing progress!  MLC members’ advocacy and emails to legislators really helped!!!  

The Maryland Legislative Coalition’s Legislative Agenda going into the 2026 Session is just as big and bold as it was in 2025.  However, with the budget shortfalls that are predicted, this will be a tough year, and we will need all hands on deck to make things happen.  Thank you for being a part of our success and we look forward to advocating along with you in 2026!

Criminal Justice

  • Comprehensive Rehabilitative Prerelease Services for female Incarcerated Individuals (The Monica Cooper Prerelease Act)
  • Get kids out of adult detention.
  • Ban automatically charging youth as adults for some crimes
  • Protection of Identity of Victim of Sexual Assault Victims in court filings
  • PATH Act (Providing Alternatives through Healing for Justice-Involved Individuals)
  • Re-entry and Reintegration Support Program

Economic Justice/Data Privacy

  • Granny’s Law – adhere to true wishes of seniors, even if not captured in legal language
  • Penalties for Coerced Debt
  • Provide protections from workforce retaliation for engaging in political activity
  • Create a registry of all companies in the state that harvest and sell data for profit
  • Require businesses to accept cash payments for transactions less than $300 to help people who may not have credit cards
  • Protect the private information of all elected officials
  • Combined reporting and additional taxes for the wealthy
  • $25 minimum wage statewide

Education

  • Advance Accountability and Transparency with Blueprint implementation
  • Change the current star-rating system for schools
  • Invest in the Professional Teacher Development Program
  • Funding stipends to let experienced principals help mentor aspiring school leaders
  • Permanently expand Tier I eligibility to students with disabilities and multilingual learners
  • Deliver promised supports and protections for Black and Brown students, multilingual learners, students with disabilities, and students in poverty
  • Promote scalable pilots for Blueprint implementation
  • Promote college-readiness and opportunity for Maryland’s students, especially in under-resourced communities.
  • Protection of Students from Sexual Exploitation in Schools
  • Higher Ed Admissions – Ensure that Disciplinary Records are not provided
  • Dependent Children of Service Members – Advance Enrollment Procedures
  • Literacy Coaches

Elections

  • Constitutional amendment to require special elections for legislative vacancies
  • Maryland Voting Rights Act (vote dilution)
  • Voting Rights for All Act that would end felony disenfranchisement
  • Increase access to public campaign financing to make running for office more equitable and representative
  • Protect and expand voting rights by improving transparency and accountability within local boards of elections
  • Term limits for General Assembly members
  • Redistricting
  • Permitting electronic signatures for Referendum Petitions
  • Preventing Lobbyists from providing meals to legislators

Environment

  • Bottle Recycling Bill
  • Cherish our Environment Act
  • Advanced Transmission Technologies
  • SREC2 provisions of the Abundant Affordable Clean Energy Act
  • Study bill to consider MD leaving PJM
  • Demand Response for Data Centers
  • Climate resilience and adaptation
  • More investment in Renewable Energy
  • Balcony Solar
  • Retail Service Station Conversions
  • PFAS – phasing them out of consumer products and mitigating PFAS in biosolids
  • Forest Stewardship Act
  • Interjurisdictional Watersheds – Flood Management

Gun Control

  • Make DIY Machine Guns Illegal
  • Take away guns before conviction
  • Family and Law Enforcement Protection Act – to ensure that individuals subject to a Domestic Violence Protective Order surrender their guns
  • Prohibition of Certain Handgun Sales
  • Comprehensive Community Safety Funding Act – excise tax on firearms and ammunition
  • Handgun Roster Board Reform

Health Care

  • Maryland Universal Healthcare System Analysis
  • Expand patient communication rights in healthcare and long-term care facilities
  • Enhance oversight and accountability in our healthcare system to ensure fairness for patients and providers
  • Shorten hospital wait times
  • Create a regulatory framework for clinical trials of rare drugs to establish Maryland as a leader in the biotech space
  • Create a special enrollment period for people who take a job with a small business that does not offer employer-based health insurance
  • Create a guaranteed process for family members moving to Maryland who need disability services
  • Long COVID Study
  • Transition Medicaid to a fee for service model to have the state directly pay providers

Housing

  • Fair housing testing bill to make an exception to the two-party consent rule
  • Good Cause Evictions
  • Funding for Community Schools Eviction Prevention Program
  • Addressing Discriminatory Screening Practices
  • Require tax credit applications for homeowner and renters tax credits to be available in Spanish as well as English
  • Prohibit the use of algorithms and private data sharing to set rental prices
  • Allow counties to artificially lower the property tax value of homes built as low income homes
  • Increase funding for eviction prevention

Labor

  • Safe staffing w SEIU
  • Collective Bargaining Rights at University of Maryland for Graduate Assistants
  • Collective Bargaining Rights at University of MD for non-tenured track faculty
  • Binding contract arbitration for state workers

Social Justice

  • Ban 287(g) Agreements in Maryland
  • Protect Marylander’s data from being used by ICE
  • Ending voluntary cooperation with ICE detainers and ICE administrative warrants
  • Law Enforcement Mask Ban: Limit masking for all law enforcement in the state.
  • Law Enforcement ID Requirement: Require agency-ID for all law enforcement in the state.
  • Ban or limit the use or acquisition of any equipment procured from the military or the U.S. Department of Defense Law Enforcement Support Program, known as the 1033 or 1122 programs.
  • Strengthen immigrant rights and protections, ensuring every Marylander can live with dignity and safety
  • Birth Certificate Modernization Act

Transportation

  • Transportation Climate Alignment
  • Transportation Investment Priorities Act Land Use – Transit-Oriented Development – Alterations
  • Stop Maglev
  • Additional $150 million (to grow annually 3% each year effective FY29) of capital funding for WMATA

Women’s Rights

  • Prescription Privacy Protection Act for Abortion Medication
  • The Maryland Reproductive Justice and Pregnancy Outcome Protection Act
  • Timing of Hearings between Temporary Protective Order and Final Protective Order, and Relief for Financial Loss
  • Maryland Caregiver Employment Protection Act
  • Child Care regulatory relief that allows child care providers to operate without sacrificing safety or quality