The 2025 Legislative Session

Today marks the start of the 2025 legislative session. Unlike the United States Congress, the Maryland General Assembly is part-time and meets for 90 days each year. After several legislative sessions starting new roles, I am excited to start this session in my second year as chair of the House Environment and Transportation Committee, one of our six committees.

Almost every session I take a late-night photo of the State House during one of our breaks as we march towards midnight adjournment on the final day.
Let's see if I do it again 90 days from today.

As I do each year with this first email of the legislative session, I will discuss my legislative agenda—the bills I will be primarily sponsoring—below. But I also have the opportunity each year to work on numerous other issues both as a member of the full House and chair of a committee.  Specifically, in addition to having the usual opportunity to weigh in on the state budget, public education, healthcare (including reproductive health), sensible gun control and public safety, and numerous other issues, the committee I chair has jurisdiction over the environment, transportation, housing, agriculture, ethics, and more.  In fact, as committee chair, I am the sponsor of 21 bills as a courtesy to various state departments and agencies seeking changes to their governing statutes.
 
That said, I currently plan to sponsor the most diverse slate of legislation of my entire career. Here are brief summaries of the eleven bills that I plan to primarily sponsor:
 
WSSC Transparency and Reform Act of 2025: The Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission is our local water utility and while it succeeds every time clean water comes out of the tap and dirty water goes out with a flush, I am a strong believer in making sure our institutions are subject to strict oversight and review to ensure their continued success. This legislation arose from constituent complaints of varying scales: concerns about unexplainable high bills, exasperation with ever rising rates and add-on charges, and WSSC disregarding its contractual obligations to local communities. The bill puts in place several reforms and transparency provisions while also requiring a full review of WSSC’s performance. As a local bill, this has already been introduced and had local bill hearings (you can watch my testimony here). If it makes it through the local process in Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties, it will go through the regular legislative process.
 
The MARC Rail Authority Act of 2025: Maryland’s commuter rail system—the three lines that make up MARC rail including the Brunswick Line through Montgomery County—has long been the stepchild of the state Department of Transportation. Despite endless initiatives and plans, little seems to change with this system that could be a crucial part of our 21st century transportation network. I believe that part of the challenge is that our Maryland Transit Administration is not built to succeed. Unlike most state transit agencies, it provides the local Baltimore-area transit service (bus, light rail, and subway), similar to WMATA/Metro in our area, while also maintaining control of commuter rail, transit planning and grantmaking statewide, and more. This legislation would separate the MARC system to function more independently. Senator Cory McCray is sponsoring the Senate version of the bill.
 
Metro Funding Modification Act of 2025: Regular readers of my updates will not be surprised to see a Metro funding bill included here. In 2018, our region came together to support dedicated capital funding to rebuild our Metro system. And it worked. The system is in far better shape today than it was five years ago. But the regional commitment of $500 million has not kept up with inflation and this legislation would re-base Maryland’s commitment to account for inflation and peg it for future 3% growth increments, all contingent on our regional partners doing the same. Senator Malcolm Augustine is sponsoring the Senate version of the bill.
 
Franchise Reform Act: Franchising is the system by which a successful business can replicate their idea with independent ownership. If you think about McDonald’s, some of the stores are owned by the McDonald’s Corporation but many are owned by individual franchisees who have to follow certain requirements of the Franchisor (the McDonald’s Corporation). Maryland has one of the toughest franchising laws in the country, making it difficult for Franchisors to expand their concepts and for small business owner franchisees to access these concepts. The regulatory regime is well meaning to protect potential franchisees from being taken advantage of, but I believe Maryland can be more friendly to these new business concepts, a concern brought to me by several constituents. The bill would pilot a new system for franchisors to file their paperwork with the state and make other changes to our franchising regulatory regime.
 
Affordable Housing Payments in Lieu of Taxes Expansion Act: Working with our county partners, this legislation would expand an existing state program that allows housing projects meeting certain affordability requirements to pay no or discounted property taxes. In Montgomery County, more of these projects involve maintaining affordability for existing naturally occurring affordable housing that would otherwise be redeveloped to higher market rates. The legislation would allow these types of projects to benefit from the program and keep more housing affordable. Senator Shelly Hettleman is bringing the bill forward in the Senate.
 
Conflicts of Interest Act: The committee I chair has jurisdiction over our state ethics laws. Several disturbing stories have come out regarding how the former Governor did not recuse himself from matters that clearly impacted the private business he still owned. This legislation would strengthen the state’s rules around blind trusts and non-participation requirements to ensure our governors are acting on behalf of the state and not their private interests. Senator Brian Feldman, chair of the Senate committee of jurisdiction, is sponsoring the Senate version of this bill.
 
School Board Member Antibias Training Act: Last year, the General Assembly passed Ways and Means Chair Vanessa Atterbeary’s bill requiring school employees to undergo anti-bias training, including training related to anti-semitism. I was surprised to learn that school board members are not considered school employees and, therefore, were not included. This legislation closes that loophole and requires school board members around the state to go through the same training. I understand that our own county school board is doing some voluntary training, but this sets the law for all to follow. Chair Feldman is also cross-filing this legislation.
 
Local Board of Elections Transparency Act: For several years, Senator Cheryl Kagan and I have advanced transparency legislation including at the State Board of Elections to require public posting of agendas and live web streaming of meetings. This year, we are proposing to expand those requirements to local Boards of Elections including for when they canvass ballots, as was done during COVID.
 
Automated Enforcement Privacy Protections: This year I am the House cross-file of Senator Sara Love’s bill to set privacy protections around our automated enforcement programs. I believe these programs are important for public safety but there should be clear rules about how our personal data can be used. Senator Love championed this issue for years in the House and I am happy to follow her lead now.
 
Specially Designed Vintage Reproduction Registration Plates: If you ever see me driving, you know I do not even use my special General Assembly plates to say nothing of the plates you can buy with a Baltimore Oriole logo or a nice picture to support the state Agricultural Trust or Bay Foundation. But I believe Marylanders who want to pay extra should have these options and am partnering with Senator Folden to allow Marylanders to purchase vintage plates that were in use 100 years ago.
 
State Mineral Act: Picking up the mantle from former Delegate Bill Frick, Senator Craig Zucker and I are championing my constituent’s initiative to have Chromite declared the state mineral. Chromite was first discovered in the United States in Maryland and is an industrial metal. 
 
STAY CONNECTED
If you click reply to this email (this email or any weekly email from me), a return message comes directly to me and I welcome your feedback, questions, or comments anytime. You can also email me at [email protected] or call me on my cell phone at 240-447-1175. I post regularly on Facebook (Marc.Korman.Campaign), Twitter/X (@mkorman), and Threads (@marc_korman).
The Maryland General Assembly website has many great resources if you are interested in following our work over the next 90 days.  I will highlight just a few:
The general schedule is available here.
You can look up legislation and track its progress here.  Every bill introduced by the bill introduction deadline is guaranteed a hearing and before the hearing, a fiscal and policy note about the bill will be published.
You can view the Committee Schedule, which will be regularly updated, here.
I also recommend a few different news resources for those of you interested in the legislature.  In addition to the Washington Post and Baltimore Banner, there are three websites that specialize in coverage of Annapolis:
Maryland Reporter: http://marylandreporter.com/
Maryland Matters: https://marylandmatters.org/
Center Maryland: http://www.centermaryland.org/ 

LEGISLATIVE SESSION PREP I joined the I Hate Politics Podcast to preview one of the major issues of the legislative session, the project budget shortfall. You can listen to the episode here.
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Pre-filed legislation--bills introduced before the legislature convenes--are now available online. Find the House bills here and the Senate bills here. This year, the House Environment & Transportation Committee I chair has the second highest number of pre-filed bills assigned to it among the House committees.
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I have previously shared the 2025 legislative session issue papers prepared by the Department of Legislative Services, but as a reminder, you can find them here. 

OFFICE CORNERLast legislative session, I shared a book about Maryland politics and history each week of the legislative session. This year, I thought I would share something from my Annapolis office in each of my emails. This is a bit more self-indulgent compared to book recommendations but after several years in various Annapolis offices, I have some fun stuff on my shelves and walls. You should come visit me in it but, for now, I can share these tidbits. First up is my bookshelf of Maryland politics and history, featuring many of the volumes I shared last legislative session.