The Quaker Voice of Maryland –

Progress Made – More to Do

From the Quaker Voice Newsletter…

“Hello Friends,

Welcome to Week 14 of the General Assembly! Last week…
  • Governor Hogan vetoed the Child Interrogation Protection Act! Thankfully state lawmakers moved quickly to override the veto and this bill was successfully passed. Whew!
  • Governor Hogan announced he would not veto the Climate Solutions Now Act! This was an unexpected announcement that transformed a rally that was originally planned to counteract a veto into a celebration of the bill passing. Wahoo!

This week…

  • “Sine Die” was on Monday. Check out our Bill Tracking Sheet for updates and stay tuned for a end-of-session newsletter being published at the end of the month.
  • Action opportunity – Encourage FCNL-state collaboration. Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) is gathering discernment from Friends until April 19th on where to focus congressional advocacy work in 2023 and 2024. If you plan on sharing (individual submissions is an option) consider adding a comment at the end of the survey that speaks to the opportunity of FCNL-state collaboration. Sample text could read “FCNL could increase its impact by cooperating with Friends’ state-level efforts; shared model legislation efforts could initiate national changes with or without Congress.” (This sample text was shared by Annapolis Friends Meeting)
End-of-session housekeeping…
  • Scaling back to monthly emails. After our end-of-session newsletter is published at the end of the month you will be receiving less emails from us as we work on debriefing from the 2022 session and plan for next year.
  • Stay tuned for “off-season” activities. The working group will be meeting on May 2nd to debrief and create a plan for off-season activities; feel free to reach out to me or any of our working group members with ideas.
In Light,
Molly Finch”