A lot went on during the 2024 legislative session in Annapolis and Del. Matt Morgan (R-St. Mary’s) and Del. Todd Morgan (R-St. Mary’s, Calvert) sat down to discuss some of what happened during a breakfast last week at the Olde Breton Inn in Leonardtown.
The April 18 event was hosted by the St. Mary’s County Chamber of Commerce.
“Actually it was a pretty easy term compared to last year,” Todd Morgan said. “We had a good time up there and got some things accomplished.”
“I just spent the last 90 days in a small room with a lot of politicians,” Matt Morgan said, “and now being in a room with normal people feels pretty good.”
Todd Morgan said it’s difficult to push for bills against the Democrats, who hold a 102-39 House majority.
“The Democrats don’t know what bills they’re voting for, and when the bill goes up they have to press their green button because that’s their responsibility,” he said, “and punishment is passed out severely and quickly when you don’t fall in line.”
He added that Republicans “have to read all these bills so we know why we’re voting ‘yeah’ or why we’re voting ‘nay.’ We are not told how to vote. You vote for your constituents. You vote for your conscience.”
Matt Morgan said success is dictated on a few factors.
“It comes down to a couple things: how much of your agenda can you get through, how much of their agenda can you stop or modify, and how impactful can you be in the whole process,” he said.
Matt Morgan passed the Right to Try for Individualized Patients Act (House Bill 676), which he said was “one of the largest bills I’ve ever passed, [and] I think one of the most meaningful Republican bills to come out.”
He also helped pass the Civil Immunity — Educator Intervention Act (HB 137) for teachers because, “Our school system is struggling and teachers have been involved in fights and they’re getting sued.”
He added he thought he had a good session and that was “really important to me because there’s this narrative out here that if you’re Republican you’re going to stick up for your constituents and you can’t get anything done, and that’s just simply not true. This legislative session serves proof that that narrative is false.”
Matt Morgan also spoke of tax and fee increases which he said are “a problem and extremely unsettling.”
“Democrats wanted to spend money out of the Transportation Trust Fund on mass transit over roads and bridges,” he said. “Right now mass transit is subsidizing 92% of each of those riders. We have more money in this budget going to Metro ($639 million) than we do to roads and bridges ($199 million).”
Both delegates spoke about the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future’s Funding for Implementation Coordinators (HB 1082).
“We know that Kerwin’s going to fail,” Todd Morgan said of the state’s education reform plan. Other counties and Baltimore city “can’t afford it and [the state] knows that but they’re scared to sit there and say, ‘Well, we’ve got a problem here. Maybe we should sit here and delay things.’ And in the meantime they intimidate everybody and say we have to give them all this money.”
“I think we really have to watch the governor’s office in the coming months,” Matt Morgan said. “They’ve already floated some rhetoric saying that this needs to be modified because they know what’s coming down the pipe.”
Matt Morgan was asked if the Sales and Use Tax (HB 1515) green initiative that was shot down could ever gain traction.
“They keep pushing it out there and they’re going to keep making our members vote for it,” Morgan said. “That means they’re pretty serious about it but when it comes down to it, I really can’t see that happening.”
Del. Brian Crosby (D-St. Mary) and Sen. Jack Bailey (R-St. Mary’s, Calvert) were not at the breakfast event
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