The Maryland Forward Party is tracking almost 40 bills in the legislature this session and we've designated three of them as extremely high priority. You have an opportunity to make a difference here and help us defeat or support these bills - we'll tell you why you should care and what you should do next!
Find your representatives here: https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Members/District.
Click on Lookup and enter your address and zipcode.
Direct links to each representative are then shown - you can even click the "Contact checked Legislators Email" link to send an email directly! Suggested draft language will be provided with each bill below.
First up:
HB 0041 / SB 0267: Election Law - Petitions for the Formation of a New Political Party - Process
Summary: Altering the time periods during which a petition for the formation of a new political party or additional signatures to a petition may not be filed; and prohibiting signatures submitted with a petition that was officially determined as not meeting certain legal requirements from being resubmitted with a subsequent petition.
This bill specifically targets new political parties such as Forward and makes it harder for them to get status. The only purpose of this bill is to make it harder for new parties so that existing parties can maintain power. We recommend you write your representative AGAINST supporting this bill. Draft Language. This is going for a full vote in the House - email now!
Next:
HB 1094: Montgomery County - Voting Methods MC 9-25
Summary: Authorizing the Montgomery County Council to adopt, by law, a ranked-choice voting method or an approval voting method for elections for certain local offices.
This bill specifically authorizes Montgomery County to be able to use Ranked Choice Voting method for local offices. This is one of our core objectives at Forward and we strongly recommend you write IN FAVOR of supporting this bill. Draft Language. For this bill, we want you to focus on the subcommittee members to help us get this out of committee. We've listed them below. We need these emails to go out before the 11am, February 24 hearing (2/24/25)!
Lastly:
HB 1280: Election Law - Affiliating With a Party and Voting - Unaffiliated Voters
Summary: Authorizing unaffiliated voters to request to affiliate with a political party at an early voting center during a primary election and vote a ballot for the voter's preferred political party.
This will allow Unaffiliated Voters to vote in primaries by asking them to affiliate during the polling process. While not ideal, it is a step in the right direction towards our goal of Single Non-Partisan Primaries. This would essentially allow for Open primaries, but allow unaffiliated voters to affiliate with a party at the time of the vote. Fortunately, those voters could then walk out of the poll and go back to being unaffiliated, but at least they'd get a voice in the primary election, right up until the last minute. Given that nearly 25% of Marylanders are unaffiliated and given the extremely low voter turnout in the primary elections, this could be the turning point to electing less extreme candidates. We recommend you write your representative IN FAVOR of supporting this bill. Draft Language. This has a potential hearing at 1pm on February 26 - so write your delegate now!
Here are the Election Law Subcommittee Members you can focus on:
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