SPECIAL SERIES: 2026 Maryland General Assembly Scorecard — Part 2 of 3
By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews
From the redistricting implosion to the juvenile justice overhaul, the second tier of this session’s most contested legislation is where Democratic priorities and Republican frustrations came into sharpest relief.
The 2026 Maryland General Assembly session produced no shortage of headline-grabbing moments in its final weeks: a redistricting gambit that blew up in Speaker Peña-Melnyk’s hands, a Good Cause Eviction bill that passed the House 84–41 on a party-line vote then stalled in the Senate, and a juvenile justice overhaul that drew fierce opposition from the state’s prosecutors.
This is Part 2 of MDBayNews’s three-part countdown, covering #25 through #11. These are the measures that generated sustained partisan combat, organized lobbying pressure, and floor fights that defined the session’s second half. Some passed. Some didn’t. All of them matter for what they tell us about where Maryland’s Democratic supermajority wants to take the state — and where cracks in that supermajority created unexpected outcomes.
Status Key: 🔵 Signed into law | 🟢 Passed both chambers — awaiting governor | 🟡 Pending / in final negotiations | 🔴 Failed / died | ⚫ Dead — stalled without floor vote
Where Democratic Priorities Met Democratic Limits: #25–21
#25 — Blueprint for Maryland’s Future Funding Reviews and Adjustments
Bills: Various Budget and Policy Bills
Status: 🟢 Adjustments Incorporated — Budget Signed
The Blueprint for Maryland’s Future — the landmark 10-year, $3.8 billion education overhaul passed in 2021 — was supposed to be untouchable. It wasn’t. With the state facing a $1.4 billion structural deficit and cost projections for the Blueprint’s later years running ahead of schedule, the FY2027 budget incorporated modest adjustments to implementation timelines and funding formulas that drew fierce pushback from education unions and the progressives who championed the Blueprint’s passage.
Bottom line: The Blueprint was always a promise made before anyone calculated how Maryland would pay for it in year four of a multi-year fiscal squeeze. The adjustments made this session are the first of what will be ongoing recalibrations. Calling them “protecting the Blueprint” does not make them so.
#24 — Protection from Predatory Pricing Act
Bills: Gov. Moore Priority Bill
Status: 🟡 In Final Negotiations at Sine Die
A top-shelf Moore administration priority, the Protection from Predatory Pricing Act targeted algorithmic pricing models that adjust retail prices — particularly for groceries and essential goods — based on demand signals, time of day, or consumer data. The governor framed it as a consumer protection measure for working families squeezed by post-pandemic inflation; business groups countered that banning dynamic pricing would chill investment in retail modernization. Grocery chains and retail trade associations mounted significant lobbying resistance. The bill was still in active negotiation as the session approached sine die.
Bottom line: Consumer anger at grocery prices is legitimate. Whether a ban on algorithmic pricing actually reduces what Maryland families pay at the register — or simply shifts cost structures in ways that hurt smaller stores serving low-income neighborhoods — is an empirical question the bill’s sponsors largely declined to engage.
#23 — Cannabis and Alcohol Modernization
Bills: Licensing, Advertising, Cannabinoid Beverages, and Related Bills
Status: 🟢 Key Provisions Passed — Awaiting Governor
Maryland’s post-legalization cannabis regulatory architecture continued to take shape in 2026 with legislation addressing licensing equity, advertising restrictions, and the rapidly expanding market for hemp-derived cannabinoid beverages — a category that effectively operates as unregulated cannabis in liquid form. The beverages issue generated unusual cross-partisan concern: public health advocates, traditional cannabis licensees unhappy with unlicensed competition, and social conservatives all pushed for tighter rules.
Bottom line: Maryland’s cannabis regulatory framework is evolving faster than its oversight capacity. The cannabinoid beverage loophole represents a genuine public health gap — particularly given easy access by minors.
#22 — Election Misinformation and Deepfake Regulations
Bills: HB 145 and Companion Bills
Status: 🟢 Core Provisions Passed — Awaiting Governor
Legislation restricting the use of AI-generated deepfakes in political advertising and establishing civil and criminal penalties for distributing materially false audio-visual content about candidates passed despite a vigorous free speech debate. The ACLU of Maryland and First Amendment advocates argued that content-based speech restrictions — even for fabricated political content — set a dangerous precedent. Supporters noted that without legal guardrails, AI-generated political disinformation would be impossible to correct in real time.
Bottom line: The threat is real; so is the constitutional risk. Maryland would be well-served by ensuring this law survives judicial review — which requires the drafters to have been more careful about content-neutrality than political messaging bills typically are.
#21 — Restrictive Housing and Solitary Confinement Limits
Bills: HB 921 / HB 1154 and Companion Bills
Status: 🟢 Passed Both Chambers — Awaiting Governor
Legislation imposing strict time limits and due process requirements on the use of solitary confinement and restrictive housing in Maryland’s adult and juvenile detention facilities represented one of the session’s more significant criminal justice reform achievements. The Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services testified about operational impacts; correctional officers’ unions raised safety concerns about reducing administrative segregation options for managing genuinely dangerous inmates.
Bottom line: The research on solitary confinement’s psychological harm is strong and cross-ideological. The implementation guardrails around genuinely dangerous classification scenarios are the appropriate area of scrutiny — not the principle of limiting prolonged isolation.
Public Safety, Labor, and the Culture Wars: #20–16
#20 — Gun Control — Machine Gun Conversion Device Restrictions
Bills: SB 334 and Companion Bills — Glock-Style “Switch” Targeting
Status: 🟢 Passed — Awaiting Governor
Legislation targeting auto-sear conversion devices — often called “switches” — that can illegally convert semi-automatic handguns to fire automatically passed with notable Republican support after prosecutors and law enforcement presented compelling evidence of their proliferation in Baltimore City crime scenes. Unlike many gun measures in Annapolis, this bill’s focus on a specific criminal modification tool rather than lawful firearm ownership made it one of the more targeted and defensible gun bills of the session.
Bottom line: Switches are genuinely illegal and genuinely dangerous. Legislation focused on criminal modifications rather than lawful ownership is the template Maryland gun regulation should follow more consistently. Credit where it’s due.
#19 — PFAS, Sludge, and Environmental Chemical Restrictions
Bills: Various Environmental Bills
Status: 🟢 Key Provisions Passed — Awaiting Governor
A broad cluster of legislation restricting “forever chemicals” — PFAS compounds — in food packaging, sewage sludge used as agricultural fertilizer, firefighting foam, and consumer products passed after multi-year effort. Maryland farmers who had unknowingly applied PFAS-contaminated sludge to their fields testified about devastating contamination of well water and soil. The agricultural contamination evidence ultimately drove bipartisan support for the most substantive provisions.
Bottom line: This is a legitimate public health and property rights issue — farmers who have had their land contaminated by regulatory-approved sludge applications have a real grievance. The state acted. The implementation timeline will determine whether it was action or theater.
#18 — Minimum Wage Increases and Labor Measures
Bills: Various Bills — Building on $15/Hour Floor
Status: ⚫ Major Increases Stalled — Existing Floor Maintained
Proposals to raise Maryland’s minimum wage beyond the existing $15/hour floor — including a $17 proposal that gained some traction — ultimately stalled as the General Assembly confronted the same fiscal math that killed it in previous sessions: small business compliance costs, rural economy concerns, and the political reality that Senate leadership was not willing to move a wage increase in a budget year requiring difficult cuts elsewhere.
Bottom line: Maryland’s cost of living has outpaced the $15 floor in its major metros — but a one-size statewide mandate continues to create genuine hardship for businesses operating in rural Western Maryland and the Eastern Shore, where the economic context is fundamentally different.
#17 — Data Center Energy Responsibilities and Grid Cost Tariffs
Bills: Elements of Energy Package — Standalone Proposals
Status: 🟢 Incorporated into Utility RELIEF Act — Passed
The explosive growth of AI data centers — Northern Virginia’s corridor is bleeding demand pressure into Maryland’s grid — drove standalone proposals to require data centers to bear more of the infrastructure costs they impose on Maryland ratepayers. Tech industry and economic development advocates warned that punitive tariff structures would push investment to Virginia, Georgia, and Texas; consumer advocates countered that existing ratepayers were effectively subsidizing data center infrastructure. The provisions were ultimately folded into the broader Utility RELIEF Act negotiations.
Bottom line: Data centers are a legitimate grid burden. The policy question is whether Maryland can impose meaningful cost-sharing without chasing away the economic development those centers represent. That tension wasn’t resolved cleanly — it was papered over in a late-session deal.
#16 — Maryland Worker Freedom Act
Bills: HB 45
Status: 🟢 Passed — Awaiting Governor
The Maryland Worker Freedom Act prohibited employers from retaliating against employees who decline to attend mandatory workplace meetings on political, religious, or union-organizing topics — a direct response to corporate “captive audience” meetings used during union organizing campaigns. Business groups called it government intrusion into legitimate employer communication; labor advocates framed it as restoring worker autonomy in the workplace. The Senate vote was largely party-line.
Bottom line: The captive audience meeting is a real power imbalance. The legislation is a reasonable targeted response — though its drafting leaves open questions about the boundary between political and operational workplace communication that will generate litigation.
Culture, Public Safety, and the Session’s Defining Fights: #15–11
#15 — Police Face Covering Restrictions — Law Enforcement Mask Bans
Bills: Early-Session Bills — Various
Status: ⚫ Largely Stalled — Did Not Pass in Final Form
Early-session bills prohibiting law enforcement officers from wearing masks or face coverings while conducting immigration enforcement operations generated an unusual intersection of transparency advocacy and anti-enforcement activism. Law enforcement groups argued the provisions were officer safety issues. The bills drew national attention before largely dying in committee as the session shifted to the broader immigration enforcement framework.
Bottom line: The transparency instinct here is sound — the public has a right to identify officers exercising enforcement authority. But the bills were drafted primarily as immigration enforcement obstacles rather than genuine transparency measures, and the distinction matters legally and politically.
#14 — Abortion-Related Measures — Heartbeat Bill Revival
Bills: HB 49 and Companion Senate Bills
Status: 🔴 Failed — Did Not Advance Past Committee
The introduction of HB 49 — a physician-presence requirement and gestational limit proposal often described as a “heartbeat bill” framework — revived Maryland’s abortion debate in a state where reproductive rights protections are among the strongest in the nation. Maryland voters approved a constitutional amendment enshrining abortion rights in 2024, making any legislative restriction constitutionally vulnerable. The bill was understood to be a messaging exercise rather than a viable legislative vehicle; it died in committee without a floor vote.
Bottom line: The bill was constitutionally dead on arrival in Maryland post-amendment. That doesn’t mean the underlying policy debates are settled — it means they’ve been moved to a different arena. Republicans who introduced this bill were speaking to their constituents, not drafting law.
#13 — Phone-Free Schools Act
Bills: Various Senate/House Bills — Bipartisan Support
Status: 🟢 Passed Both Chambers — Awaiting Governor
Legislation mandating that Maryland schools develop and enforce policies limiting or eliminating student smartphone use during instructional hours attracted unusually broad bipartisan support — one of the few measures where Republicans, conservative Democrats, and progressives found common ground. The controversy was real but narrower: implementation debates, parental rights concerns about emergency contact access, and school administrator pushback about enforcement burden. A handful of Democrats opposed the bill as a government intrusion into school-level policy decisions.
Bottom line: The research on phones and adolescent attention is overwhelming. This is one of the session’s cleaner wins — evidence-based, bipartisan, and addressing a genuine harm. The implementation will determine whether it’s meaningful or performative.
#12 — Heritage Months and Confederate Naming Prohibitions
Bills: HB 47 (Heritage Commission) / HB 160 (Confederate Naming Ban) and Companion Bills
Status: 🟢 Mixed — Some Provisions Passed, Awaiting Governor
Two distinct but culturally entangled bills: legislation creating a commission to formally designate heritage months for various ethnic and cultural groups, and legislation prohibiting the naming of public buildings, roads, or state facilities after Confederate officers and officials. Floor debate on both bills exceeded what their standalone policy significance warranted — in part because they became proxies for a broader cultural argument about Maryland’s identity and historical memory.
Bottom line: Maryland has legitimate historical reasons to reconsider Confederate honors on public property. The heritage commission, by contrast, is the kind of bureaucratic symbol-production that government creates when it wants credit for cultural validation without actually spending money on the communities it is celebrating.
#11 — Congressional Redistricting — Mid-Decade Map Bills
Bills: HB 488 and Companion Measures; Amended SB 5 / Late Gambit
Status: 🔴 Dead — Senate President Killed the Effort
The redistricting saga of the 2026 session was among its most consequential institutional stories — and it ended in an embarrassing failure for House Democrats and Gov. Moore. The governor spent months pushing the Senate to redraw Maryland’s congressional map as a counterweight to Republican-led redistricting in other states, targeting the seat of Rep. Andy Harris, Maryland’s lone Republican congressman. Senate President Bill Ferguson refused, calling mid-decade redistricting legally risky, unnecessary, and bad governance.
When the redistricting map bill stalled, House Democrats made a desperate late move: amending an unrelated Senate bill (SB 5, a special elections measure) to insert redistricting-related language. The House passed the maneuver 93–33. Ferguson was blunt: the amended bill violated the Maryland Constitution’s single-subject rule and was “yesterday’s news.” The redistricting effort died, Harris’s seat was preserved, and Ferguson — not the governor — emerged as the session’s most powerful figure on this question.
Bottom line: Republicans notched a genuine win here, and credit goes partly to Senate President Ferguson for prioritizing institutional integrity over partisan short-termism. The mid-decade redistricting gambit was legally questionable and politically opportunistic — and Maryland’s voters should know who killed it and who tried to push it through in the final days of session.
Coming in Part 3 — The Top 10: The session’s defining flashpoints: the Community Trust Act and the 287(g) ban — the immigration enforcement battles that consumed Annapolis for three months; the Utility RELIEF Act that came together in the final days; the $70.8 billion budget; the Good Cause Eviction Act’s final failure in the Senate; and the juvenile justice overhaul. These are the bills that will define Gov. Moore’s second-term legacy.
Bill status reflects the legislative record as of 3 PM on April 13, 2026, sine die. For bill text and official vote records, see mgaleg.maryland.gov.
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