The 2024 legislative session in Annapolis ended just a few short weeks ago.
This year, there were 3,480 bills introduced in the House and Senate. While each bill introduced is entitled to a bill hearing, not every bill gets voted on. Senators are able to introduce up to 25 bills each.
Delegates do not have limits, but they do not generally introduce that many.
Out of the 3,480 bills introduced, there are some good ideas, bad ideas and down right ugly ideas. Following are some of the bad bills introduced. It’s not complete, but we do not have enough space in this article to list them all.
Do you remember President Joe Biden’s push to phase out and heavily regulate gas stoves? Places like California and New York have already tried to implement this idea, and now Maryland has followed suit when HB 91 was introduced this session, which is a bill that would have essentially banned gas stoves.
Thankfully this bill didn’t even make it out of committee.
But if that bill didn’t convince you that liberal lawmakers are trying to turn Maryland into California, HB 1096 is a bill that would have established government sponsored “heroin houses” or “opium dens” so that drug addicts can be provided sterile needles to continue to use hard drugs.
Besides the fact that this bill would literally incentivize drug addicts to do more drugs, the words “safe inject sites” are an oxymoron and are probably why this terrible bill was not passed.
However the number of liberal lawmakers that chose to sponsor this bill is worrisome. The bill went so far to not only provide a location and needles for addicts to continue to use drugs but it would also give them cable TV and a maid service, all paid for by you the taxpayer.
Believe it or not, it gets even worse. SB 123 — The Second Look Act — would have let felons serving a life sentence for murder, rape, child sex offenses and other terrible crimes get a tax payer funded attorney to appeal their sentences and get out early after serving 20 years.
This passed the Senate along Party lines but we were able to defeat this bill in the House. Ask yourself why liberal leadership would want to release the worst violent criminals out on our streets?
Another bill introduced, HB 1022, would allow murderers, rapists, child molesters, and felons with life sentences to vote from prison. The sponsor of this bill also just so happens to be the Election Subcommittee Chair.
Democrats in Annapolis are trying to buy the votes of violent criminals while simultaneously trying to let them out on the streets. Talk about a bad idea, after getting the right to vote, maybe the felons could band together to change the sentencing laws to?
HB 558 is a bill that was introduced in the house and would have required teaching gender ideology to children beginning in PreK and showing graphic sex information to fifth graders without the ability for parental notification and opt-out.
Our schools are not indoctrination camps and parents have a right to know what they’re children are being taught. This is a talk that should happen between the parents and their children, not in a classroom.
This bill passed the House but died in the Senate. We voted NO.
HB 184 is a bill that would have established a socialist healthcare system in Maryland by making health care “free” and government controlled. You think healthcare is expensive now, wait until it’s “free.”
Most Marylanders are already taxed to death and this bill would do the same in order to fund healthcare for everybody, including illegal aliens! People want choice in the healthcare industry, not government run healthcare with extremely long wait times like in Canada.
The government can’t even run the MVA or Post Office efficiently! So what makes you think they could monopolize the entire healthcare industry? We should build on private-sector successes, not abandon them. Let’s work together to make healthcare truly affordable for everyone.
Let’s dive into some more bills that were terrible for our economy.
To continue Maryland’s addicted spending problem, leadership introduced HB 1515 which would have increased the annual sales tax by about $4 billion, essentially taxing everything and anything you need or want, including funeral services.
This bill that literally taxes you to death was introduced by the Democrat Majority Leader. We fought hard to reject this bill and thankfully it died.
Maryland has the third-highest gas taxes in the country. But HB 1008, introduced by the Speaker Pro-Tem, would have put a $300 million tax on any fossil fuels that are delivered by truck.
That means home heating fuel, gas, or diesel for our vehicles. We are already one of the few states that have an annual gas tax increase every July and now they want to tax fuels more? How about we find a way to bring down costs at the pump instead of taxing us into oblivion.
Out of the many bad bills introduced in this legislative session, we have and will continue to fight against these ugly pieces of legislation that not only hurt our constituents but also all Marylanders and we will continue to fight for sound policies that will address crime, defend freedom, revitalize our economy, keep taxes low and protect parental rights.
The views expressed in this column reflect the opinions and research of the authors and not necessarily those of The Avenue’s editorial staff.
”Now You Know” is a weekly column written by state delegates Ryan Nawrocki and Kathy Szeliga.
Read this column in its entirety on https://www.avenuenews.com/.
Most Popular
Comments / 0