Senate President Bill Ferguson and House of Delegates Speaker Adrienne A. Jones announced yesterday at a rally that they will not hold a special session this fall. As reported by Maryland Matters,
House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones (D-Baltimore County) and Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) turned up unannounced at a mock special legislative session organized by progressive groups in Annapolis on Wednesday evening and formally signaled their reluctance to convene before the 2021 session is set to begin in January.
Despite hearing entreaties from a crowd of 200 people that the myriad challenges facing the state demand swift legislative action, Ferguson and Jones said they needed more time to carefully craft legislation that meets the historic demands of the moment.
The President and Speaker explained to the group that “they plan to address all the issues but that they don’t want to rush anything through a special session.” As reported by the Baltimore Sun,
On policing reform, for example, a House of Delegates work group has met regularly to hear from different sides of the issue, and a Senate committee has three afternoons of public hearings on 15 proposed bills scheduled next week.
“We don’t want to just say we’re doing this because of what happened with George Floyd,” Jones said. “We want to make sure we get it right as it relates to Maryland. You don’t deserve anything less than that.”
Ferguson said lawmakers don’t want to do a rush job.
“We have to do the work and make sure that we solve these problems,” Ferguson said. “The reason we aren’t having a special session is because we need the information. We need to do the work to make sure that when we convene as a General Assembly, we solve the problems that you care about, that I care about, that all of us here tonight are fighting for on an every-single-day basis.”
Additional coverage – MarylandReporter
