Life as a Progressive Legislator

I am a Maryland state legislator. A Democrat. A progressive. And I am a worried man.

I left this year's legislative session convinced that the mainstream Democratic Party political vision offers, at best, a torturous, contorted path to the more democratic, sustainable and just future Maryland and the nation deserve. I also left more convinced than ever that adding a few progressives to the Statehouse legislative mix, in and of itself, is not going to make much of a difference.

I serve in what should be the most progressive state government in America. In Maryland, with a Democrat as governor and a hefty majority in both legislative chambers, mainstream Democrats have achieved the sort of statewide political dominance they can only dream about elsewhere in the nation. What has this dominance accomplished? By some measures a good bit. The legislative session before last year's election, for instance, generated a new law that requires trigger locks on all new handguns, the first such mandate in the nation. Legislators also widened children's healthcare coverage and guaranteed prevailing wage rates for school construction projects. The state also stepped in with additional funds for teacher salaries and expanded the earned-income tax credit for low-wage workers. And lawmakers earmarked cigarette litigation funds for smoking prevention, cancer research and education.

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