October 8

Del. Tawanna Gaines resigned her House seat after being charged with wire fraud. Read our statement on this unexpected development.

 

September 2 - Labor Day

GMOM participated in a Labor Day March in Washington with an economic justice group called Our Money. GMOM President Charlie Cooper was a featured speaker. We marched from the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial to the Federal Reserve Bank to emphasize the theme of the march - full employment. Our Money founder, Rev. Dr. Delman Coates, emphasized that the political power of the banks has distorted our money creation process to support profit for a few financiers while we fail to finance vital public infrastructure that could create full employment and shared prosperity. See our short highlight video of the march below:

 

July 29

Congratulations to Ashley Sparks for her election to the GMOM Board! Ashley is a teacher from Charles County, a voice for political equality, and an active volunteer for the Democracy Amendment.

 

We are proud of GMOM Board member Diamonte Brown who has been elected President of the Baltimore Teacher's Union. Here she is talking about how she will build support to transform public schools to serve students better.

 

The House of Representatives passed bills to provide aid to states to prevent hacking in the 2020 election. But Senate leader McConnell got campaign money from voting machine lobbyists and has refused to bring the bills up for a vote. Note, however, that McConnell won't even allow a vote on proposals supported by the machine-makers.

 

A ProPublica investigative report says that Annapolis-based Kelley Rogers, principal of Conservative Majority super PAC, evidently kept for himself the money donors contributed to oppose Barack Obama.

 

Rep. Pramila Jayapal is prime sponsor of HJ Res 48, a proposed US Constitutional Amendment that would reserve constitutional rights to natural persons, require regulation of money in politics to promote political equality, and mandate disclosure of election contributions and spending. Only Jamie Raskin among the Maryland Congressional delegation is a co-sponsor. Please thank him or contact your representative and ask him to sign on.

District 1 - Andy Harris "Please co-sponsor HJ Res 48!"

District 2 - Dutch Ruppersberger "Please co-sponsor HJ Res 48!"

District 3 - John Sarbanes "Please co-sponsor HJ Res 48!"

District 4 - Anthony Brown "Please co-sponsor HJ Res 48!"

District 5 - Steny Hoyer "Please co-sponsor HJ Res 48!"

District 6 - David Trone "Please co-sponsor HJ Res 48!"

District 7 - Elijah Cummings "Please co-sponsor HJ Res 48!"

District 8 - Jamie Raskin "Thank you for co-sponsoring HJ Res 48!"

 

 

July 3

The Trump Administration reversed its position on its efforts to include the citizenship question in the 2020 census, saying it will use any means to include the question, once again throwing the outcome of the dispute into uncertainty. 

 

July 2

The Trump Administration will drop efforts to include a citizenship question on the 2020 census. This comes after the Supreme Court ruled that the Administration's original rationale (to help enforce the Voting Rights Acts) was a subterfuge. Critics had charged that the purpose of the question was to discourage undocumented immigrants from answering the census and thus produce an undercount that would favor Republican states and Congressional districts. Such an undercount could have created a built-in advantage in apportionment of seats in Congress to the states, in gerrymandering Congressional and state legislative districts, and in receipt of federal funds for hundreds of programs.

 

April 25

A federal court ruled that 34 of Michigan's Congressional and and state legislative are unconstitutional gerrymandered for partisan purposes. The court ruled that First-Amendment rights of Democratic voters were trampled "by placing them in districts where their votes were worthless." Also, the 14th-Amendment guarantee of equal protection was violated.  "...[T]he impact of the ruling ultimately will turn on an opinion by the Supreme Court, which is weighing decisions in two other partisan gerrymander cases involving congressional districts in North Carolina and Maryland.

 

April 7

Speaker of the House, Michael E. Busch died of pneumonia after a series of severe health challenges. He became Speaker in 2003 and was the longest-serving Speaker in the history of the House of Delegates. During the 2018 legislative session, Speaker Busch exercised leadership to pass the Democracy Amendment Resolution. Get Money Out named him a Democracy Champion. During the election campaign later in 2018, he took the "Pledge to Get $$$ Out." 

 

March 28

Republicans in the US Senate will not allow a vote on an omnibus democracy reform bill that passed in the House of Representatives. Senate Democrats have introduced a bill almost identical to H.R. 1, which passed the House on March 8 by a vote of 234 - 193. However, Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will not allow a vote.

 

March 8

The Senate Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs Committee voted UNFAVORABLE on SJ 1 on March 8. This action kills the Democracy Amendment Resolution for 2019. The following senators voted UNFAVORABLE: Kagan, Lam, Bailey, Carozza, Ellis, and Patterson.

 

February 14

 

The Democracy Amendment Resolution was SJ 1, by Paul Pinsky and 19 other senators.The hearing was held before the Senate Education, Health, and Environment Committee (starting at 2:20:00).  See the video of the hearing below.

In the House of Delegates, it was HJ 2, by Tawanna Gaines and 74 other delegates. 

 

January 28

GMOM+WOLF-PAC lobby night was a big success

Jan. 28. Here’s half of our Lobby Night attendees with House of Delegates sponsor Tawanna Gaines.

 

January 3

H.R. 1 by Speaker Pelosi and Rep. John Sarbanes (MD-3) "To expand Americans’ access to the ballot box, reduce the influence of big money in politics, and strengthen ethics rules for public servants, and for other purposes." It has 227 co-sponsors. The text is available.