The Republican Party Wants You
The Republican Party Wants You!!
By Amy Waychoff and Sandy Tuttle
You may have heard by now that the Maryland General Assembly has returned for the 2023 session. With Governor Wes Moore at the helm, it promises to be a challenging 90 day session. And, while it has been exactly 100 years since the Democrats achieved a veto proof majority in the Maryland General Assembly, that does NOT mean that Republicans cannot influence which bills get passed.
Democrats need to know that they cannot ‘steamroll’ their radical bills through the legislature. For example, opponents of sanctuary legislation (that acts as a magnet for illegal aliens to come to Maryland) went en masse to Annapolis to testify against these bills - until 2020 and then COVID struck. We were able to successfully keep bills like this from passing out of the judiciary and other committees. Pro-life advocates have similarly been successful in thwarting efforts on several fronts. One bill would have allowed abortion until 28 days after birth.
Which brings us to today. Hearings will begin soon on some of the up to 3,000 bills that the legislators will likely introduce. While tracking all the bills is time consuming, we have Ella Ennis of MFRW who does this for us. In addition, she often sends out talking points and sample testimony on key bills. Emails, testifying in person or by zoom, making calls, it all makes a difference. While all of this may seem daunting, we can all be citizen activists.
This year, from our own Montgomery County Delegates, a bill on ranked choice voting (RCV) has once again been introduced. RCV can be complicated to understand for a variety of reasons, but simply, RCV ranks all of the candidates in order of preference, and then re-tabulates and moves votes around. Republicans have successfully rallied against in the past, and will need to do so again this session. What about 16 year olds voting in local elections? That doesn’t seem like such a good idea and frankly there are other ways for teenagers to get involved in local politics.
Which brings us to the Maryland State Constitution course beginning Friday February 3rd at 7 pm at the MCGOP Headquarters. Please go to https://www.mcgop.com/maryland_constitution_class for further details on how to sign up. All of our legislators swear to uphold the federal and state constitution. It’s great to be able to remind our state officials of their obligations to ‘we the people.’
If you have children, grandchildren, or just want better for our state, then please consider getting involved.
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Amy Waychoff and S. Alexandra Tuttle are Members of the Maryland Republican Central Committee for Montgomery County.