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My fellow Marylanders,
We held our final bill signing ceremony of our first term last week, and I wanted to take a moment to pause and reflect on what you and I have accomplished together – both in this most recent ceremony and over this first term – to make life in Maryland more affordable, strengthen our state's economy, and protect all of our people.
We took on the housing crisis. Our state’s population is growing faster now than at any point in a decade — and we need housing to meet that growth! I signed into law the Maryland Housing Certainty Act and the Maryland Transit and Housing Opportunity Act. Together, they will open up hundreds of state-owned land near transit and allow us to build thousands of new homes.
We stood up for the educators. Adjunct faculty and lecturers teach the majority of classes at our public universities, but many are only paid by the course, with no benefits and no certainty about whether they'll have a job come fall. Now that I’ve signed into law legislation giving them the right to collectively bargain, they can organize and bargain for fair pay, benefits, and security that lasts longer than a single semester.
We made the largest investment in child care in Maryland's history. No parent should ever have to choose between knowing their kids are safe and being able to go to work. Now – because of our work with the General Assembly – we're able to build on the 70% expansion in child care access that we've already achieved and help more families get the child care they need.
And these are just accomplishments from this most recent bill signing.
Over our first-term, we’re making life more affordable for Marylanders: We’ve raised the minimum wage, released previously withheld funding for paid family and medical leave, and cut taxes for the middle class and for military veterans. We expanded the Child Tax Credit and made the Earned Income Tax Credit permanent, and became the first state to ban price manipulation practices based on surveillance data in grocery stores and by third-party delivery services.
We made sure data centers paid for their own energy, and allocated millions to offset utility fees and lower energy bills for Marylanders.
We’re strengthening our economy. While Washington is busy raising costs for working families and driving America’s economy into a ditch, Maryland is showing there is a better way. We created nearly 55,000 new business establishments, grew Maryland’s apprenticeship pipeline, expanded opportunities for small, minority, women, and veteran-owned businesses, and removed barriers to investment so we can increase our economic competitiveness.
We’re building safer communities. Through our all-of-the-above public safety strategy, we’ve paired record investments in law enforcement with efforts to address the root causes of crime. The combination has driven a historic drop in violent crime across the entire state, including in Baltimore.
We pardoned over 180,000 misdemeanor cannabis convictions, and helped thousands of Marylanders who have served their time get a fair shot at building their future.
We’re protecting our people. We created the ENOUGH Initiative to combat child poverty in communities all across the state. We protected access to vaccines, and secured millions in federal funding to improve health care in rural Maryland communities.
And we’ve delivered for our young people, educators, and families. We’ve become the first state in the country with a service year option for our young people. We’ve made historic investments in K-12 public education. We cut the teacher vacancy rates in half, have seen reading and math score improvements across the state, and overseen a significant drop in chronic absenteeism.
None of this happens without you. Advocates, providers, labor leaders, students, and everyday Marylanders showed up in Annapolis and made their voices heard. You all made it possible to improve the lives of Marylanders all across the state.
My signature may be on these bills, but your hands hold the pen. Thank you.
Your Governor,
Wes Moore
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