With just three weeks left in the Maryland legislative session, multiple bills were approved in the House and Senate on Monday—also known as crossover day.

Any legislation not passed out of one chamber as of Monday will need to go to a special committee and face additional scrutiny before a final vote in its original chamber. The House passed measures establishing Juneteenth as a Maryland paid day off for state workers, regulating school resource officers, and preventing low-income hospital patients from incurring medical debt. But bills to legalize and regulate recreational marijuana sales and establish grocery stores in food deserts failed to to be voted out of the House.

Here’s a comprehensive list of bills that have a greater chance of getting to Gov. Larry Hogan’s desk over the next month:

Defeating COVID

A Senate bill being proposed by Prince George’s County Senator Jim Rosapepe (D) would require the state health department to work more closely with local health departments on a two-year plan to defeat COVID. The bill would also establish measures for testing, contact tracing, and equitable vaccine distribution, and provide additional funding to local health departments.

For fiscal years 2021 and 2022, the state health department would need to provide $15 million for each local health department to vaccinate their residents, $25 million in annual grants — which would be apportioned based on a population — to expand testing and contact tracing, up to $45 million to assisted living facilities and home health programs, and up to $27.5 million in additional COVID testing for nursing homes. The bill passed unanimously out of the Senate.

Back-To-School With COVID Concerns

The wide-ranging education reform bill — known as the Blueprint for Public Schools — passed last year with bipartisan support, but Hogan vetoed it, citing concerns for the state’s fiscal position last year during the beginning of the pandemic. The General Assembly managed to override the veto.

As the pandemic continued, students, many without internet access or a computer, began learning remotely. So this year’s bill includes revisions to the Blueprint bill to designate funding for broadband access, computers, and additional tutoring for all grade levels. It does not change the funding of the initial $4 billion annually reform package. The bill passed out of chamber along party lines.

Another bill, proposed by Prince George’s County Del. Alonzo Washington (D), would require that school resource officers and security personnel complete background checks showing no use-of-force complaints, and participate in de-escalation, mediation, and restorative justice approaches to disciplinary action training. The bill passed out of the House along party lines. The legislation comes as many school systems in the region are discontinuing school resource officers. Most recently, Montgomery County voted to defund school resource officers and opt instead for additional mental health counselors.

Medical Debt Protection

Low-income residents with unpaid hospital debt could get some relief from a bill that would require hospitals to make a good faith effort to agree to a payment plan before taking patients to court or placing the payment into debt collection.

“Consumer debt is crushing, and it’s a huge piece of what keeps people trapped in poverty,” Montgomery County Del. Lorig Charkoudian (D), the bill’s sponsor, told WAMU/DCist. “Medical debt is a particular challenge because it’s usually coming on the heels of a major illness.”

Maryland’s Health Services Cost Review Commission found in a study that 60% of unpaid hospital charges were attributable to patients with household income under that 200% of the federal poverty level. These patients were entitled to free care due to their income.

The bill also limits a payment plan to no more than 5% of a patient’s income, bars a hospital from suing a patient or placing debt with a collection agency within six months of the first hospital bill, and prohibits a hospital from placing a lien on a patient’s home or garnishing their wages.

While the bill passed out of its hearing committee and House chamber unanimously, the Maryland Hospital Association opposed it.

“Hospitals’ uncompensated care burden will rise significantly. That would strain the provisions of Maryland’s unique agreement with the federal government and add costs for all health plans and patients,” Jennifer Witten, the MDA’s vice president of government affairs, told WAMU/DCist in a written statement.

Juneteenth State Holiday

The bill would make June 19 — also known as Emancipation Day for all those enslaved in the U.S. in 1865 — a state holiday, and give state employees a paid day off. The bill was voted out of chamber along party lines.

Minority Whip Del. Kathy Szeliga (R-Baltimore County) and other Republicans said while it was “past due” to make Juneteenth a state holiday, “when we have more than one million Marylanders on unemployment should we give the 71,000 state workers a paid day off?”

Szeliga pointed out that state employees already get 12 state holidays that are paid-days off.

“Our budget reflects our value system,” Del. Joseline Peña-Melnyk (D-Prince George’s, Anne Arundel counties) responded to Szeliga. “The reason we need to make it a paid-holiday is because not many people even know what it is.”

Changes To Rights Of Incarcerated Individuals

During the 2020 election, criminal justice advocates in Maryland were trying to make sure that the 40,000 people with felony convictions, who are no longer imprisoned but haven’t yet completed their parole or probation process, were able to receive mail-in ballots. These formerly incarcerated individuals gained the right to vote in 2016, but there was no legislation requiring the state’s corrections department to inform these individuals of their right to vote and getting ballots to them.

The current bill, sponsored by Montgomery County Del. Jheanelle Wilkins (D) codifies the right to vote for these formerly incarcerated individuals into law. The bill passed out of the House chamber along party lines.

A bill that passed out of both chambers would allow incarcerated individuals to reduce their sentences by completing at least 600 hours of coursework toward a high school diploma, associates degree, or a bachelor’s degree. This would reduce an inmate’s sentence by 60 days. The House voted for the bill along party lines, while the Senate voted for it unanimously. But the two chambers disagree on exceptions to the eligibility for the sentence reduction,  such as people sentenced for a sexual offense or murder. Those disagreements will have to be worked out in a conference committee of lawmakers from both chambers.

A bill that passed out of the Senate chamber Monday and the House chamber last week would stipulate that an inmate sentenced to life imprisonment would not be eligible for parole before serving for 15 years. For those sentenced to life imprisonment after October 1, they would be eligible for parole after 20 years.

The bill also partially removes the governor’s authority to approve of parole decisions and places some of the authority with the parole commission, whose members are appointed by the governor. (Maryland is one of three states in which the governor presides over a parole board.) That decision would then go to the governor who would have 180 days to respond. If the governor doesn’t respond the decision of the commission holds.

The bill was voted out of the Senate along party lines. Democratic lawmakers wanted to make sure that the governor didn’t have the ultimate decision making power. But, Republicans rejected the measure saying the bill was too lenient on inmates and would allow dangerous criminals to get parole.

Cooperating With ICE Agents

The legislation would prevent drivers from having their license information shared with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. This would make it illegal for counties’ police officers or state agencies to share undocumented residents’ personal information with ICE. The bill makes an exception for those individuals with an outstanding federal warrant.

Earlier this year, Maryland’s American Civil Liberties Union settled a lawsuit — the second in less than a decade — that accused the Frederick County Sheriff’s Department of discriminatory policing practices. Frederick is one of two counties in the state that continues a program that partners ICE with local county detention officers to identify and remove undocumented immigrants from the country.  It’s formally known as the 287(g) program.