Appointments landed roughly 17 months after lawmakers first passed the bill, and the panel itself was quietly expanded and delayed inside this year’s budget reconciliation act
By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews
ANNAPOLIS — A state commission that took years to authorize is finally close to convening. The Governor’s Office of Appointments released five of Gov. Wes Moore’s six picks for the Maryland Reparations Commission last week, part of a wave of appointments that also included most of the seats controlled by the Senate president and House speaker.
Del. Aletheia McCaskill, a Baltimore County Democrat who co-sponsored the legislation, called the moment surreal after so much delay. “I am excited to see the Commission is moving forward,” she said in a statement, adding that the group will begin examining the historic and modern impacts of slavery and discrimination in Maryland.
Her excitement is genuine, and the commission’s creation was hard-won. What’s gotten less attention is that the commission taking shape this month isn’t quite the one the General Assembly actually voted to create.
A bigger commission, a much longer runway
“The commission taking shape this month isn’t quite the one the General Assembly actually voted to create.”
As passed in 2025, the Reparations Commission was a 23-member body. According to the Maryland State Archives’ official manual, the commission on the books today has 28 seats: six appointed by the governor, five each by the Senate president and House speaker (who also jointly name one more), three ex officio members, and the rest named by outside groups, including the Legislative Black Caucus, the Maryland Commission for African American History and Culture, and the Maryland Black Chamber of Commerce.
The commission’s reporting deadlines moved too. Lawmakers originally set a preliminary report due Jan. 1, 2027, and a final report due Nov. 1, 2027. Under current law, those dates are now Sept. 1, 2028, and Dec. 1, 2028, roughly 20 months later than what was written into the bill Moore vetoed and the legislature overrode. The commission’s authorization now runs through June 30, 2029.
Both changes trace back to the same place: this year’s Budget Reconciliation and Financing Act, the annual fiscal cleanup bill that accompanies the state operating budget. The Department of Legislative Services’ own summary of the 2026 legislative session confirms the budget bill “made changes to the membership, public meeting requirements, and reporting dates for the Maryland Reparations Commission.” A standalone bill to expand the commission, sponsored by Sen. C. Anthony Muse, was introduced in March and then withdrawn without explanation. The substance of that bill appears to have been folded into the budget act instead, where it drew far less public attention than a freestanding vote would have.
“The panel grew from 23 members to 28, and its final report moved from November 2027 to December 2028.”
That is a fairly common maneuver in Annapolis. Reconciliation bills routinely carry policy riders alongside fiscal housekeeping. It’s also the kind of thing that’s easy to miss unless someone is reading budget documents line by line, which is exactly why it belongs in the public record here.
Where the roster actually stands
“In practical terms, the commission is still missing more than a quarter of its membership.”
Coverage this week described the panel as having “a majority” of its 23 original seats filled. The State Archives’ current roster tells a more precise story, and it reflects the 28-member structure: the governor has named five of six appointees, including the Rev. Robert Turner of Empowerment Temple AME Church in Baltimore, who testified in Annapolis in support of the bill last year. The Senate president has not yet named any of the five appointees assigned to that office. The House speaker has named three of five, including McCaskill. Outside groups, including the Legislative Black Caucus and the Maryland Commission for African American History and Culture, have filled their seats.
In practical terms, the commission is still missing more than a quarter of its membership, with the Senate president’s five seats entirely unfilled as of this week.
What the commission is charged with doing
“The commission has no authority to issue reparations itself.”
Under the statute, the panel’s work breaks down into three broad tasks:
- Look back at specific government policies from the late 1870s through the mid-1960s, the post-Reconstruction and Jim Crow years
- Assess whether public and private institutions in Maryland profited from those discriminatory policies
- Recommend a response, which could range from a formal state apology to direct payments or expanded social services
It’s worth being clear about what the commission cannot do. It has no authority to issue reparations itself. Any compensation, tax relief or other benefit it recommends would require a separate act of the governor and General Assembly before a dollar moved.
What the commission actually costs, and the fight over funding priorities
The panel itself is unpaid. It’s an all-volunteer body, though members may be reimbursed for travel expenses, and the direct cost to taxpayers is comparatively small: the nonpartisan Department of Legislative Services originally estimated the state would need to hire one contractual staffer at an annual salary of about $54,500, with Maryland’s State Archives office providing additional support. There’s no line item here that rivals the state’s larger budget problems.
But the price tag was never really the argument, at least not from the person best positioned to make it: Gov. Moore himself. When he vetoed the bill in May 2025, the state’s first Black governor didn’t frame his objection around cost. He framed it around priorities.
“Now is the time to focus on the work itself,” Moore wrote in his veto message, pointing to existing programs on homeownership and entrepreneurship rather than another study.
That argument is landing in a state that is still working through real fiscal strain, even if the numbers have improved since the commission was first debated. Heading into this year’s legislative session, Maryland faced a projected fiscal 2027 cash shortfall of about $1.56 billion and a structural deficit, the gap between ongoing revenue and ongoing spending, of about $1.24 billion, according to the General Assembly’s Spending Affordability Committee. Lawmakers cut spending and shifted funds to close most of that gap. The budget signed this spring is projected to close fiscal 2027 with a positive general fund cash balance of $201 million. But the structural shortfall wasn’t eliminated, just cut roughly in half. The Department of Legislative Services now projects a $598 million structural deficit for fiscal 2027, widening to $2.57 billion by fiscal 2028 and $3.43 billion by fiscal 2030, driven largely by rising costs under the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future education law.
“The structural shortfall wasn’t eliminated, just cut roughly in half.”
The fight that got it here
The bill’s path to this point was anything but smooth. The General Assembly passed it in April 2025 with strong Democratic majorities, only for Moore to veto it weeks later, a decision that stunned members of his own party and drew sharp criticism from national civil rights figures. Lawmakers overrode that veto in a December special session, 93-35 in the House and 31-14 in the Senate, both well above the three-fifths threshold required.
During the override debate, Del. Matthew Morgan, a St. Mary’s County Republican, argued the panel amounted to “race bait handouts,” a characterization Democratic sponsors rejected. Even some supporters acknowledge the commission hasn’t settled a basic question yet. Carl O. Snowden, convener of the Caucus of African American Leaders, said Friday that Black Marylanders themselves are divided over who should ultimately qualify for any remedy the panel recommends: provable descendants of enslaved people, or a wider group of Black residents affected by discriminatory policy more broadly.
What to Watch
- Whether the Senate president fills any of the commission’s five still-vacant seats
- Whether Moore’s office names its sixth appointee, as promised
- Whether the commission holds an organizational meeting before the newly extended reporting clock starts to matter
- How the panel resolves the eligibility question Snowden raised, since it will shape any recommendations that follow
Sources: This report draws on original reporting by William J. Ford of Maryland Matters, including his Sept. 14, 2026 story on the commission appointments and earlier coverage from March 2026 on proposed membership changes. The commission’s current legal structure, membership breakdown, and vacancies come from the Maryland Manual On-Line, published by the Maryland State Archives. The Budget Reconciliation and Financing Act’s effect on the commission is confirmed in the Department of Legislative Services’ 2026 90-Day Report and in the enrolled text of Chapter 6 of the Acts of 2026 (Senate Bill 284), both published by the Maryland General Assembly. Budget figures come from the 2025 Spending Affordability Committee report and the DLS 90-Day Report. Background on the veto and override comes from Gov. Wes Moore’s official May 2025 veto letter, published by the Maryland governor’s office, and from contemporaneous coverage by The Associated Press, WBFF/Fox Baltimore and Maryland Matters.
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