It looks like the issue with the Howard County Citizens’ Election Fund is going to be resolved soon. The Howard County Council will be holding a Special Legislative Session on Wednesday, January 26, 2022 at 6pm. On the agenda for that session is the following:
Introduced by: Opel Jones, Deb Jung, Christiana Rigby, Elizabeth Walsh, David Yungmann and at the request of the County Executive
CB11-2022: AN ACT repealing a certain provision of law relating to the determination of whether an election is contested for the distribution of a public contribution from the Citizens’ Election Fund; confirming that a certified candidate may receive a matching public contribution for any qualifying contributions that were collected prior to the effective date of this Act; making a technical correction in order to remove an ambiguity in the Citizens’ Election Fund law to facilitate orderly administration of the program; generally relating to the Citizens’ Election Fund; and declaring that this Act is an Emergency Bill necessary to meet a public emergency affecting life, health or property.
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I am not totally sure why we need CB 11-22 when we have CB 6-22 out there now…but I can guess.
I will be sure to listen in tomorrow evening to hear what is said and see how many victory laps are taken that evening relating to fixing this issue.
To be honest, we should all be happy that this issue may soon be behind us and that this program is fixed as intended by the original writers of the legislation and all the councilmembers that voted for it in 2017.
This does not erase the “mess” that has been going on for weeks related to the program as documented by the Howard County Times, Baltimore Sun Editorial team, Maryland Matters and many articles right here on the Blog…but it will put this in the rear view mirror (soon) and elected officials and candidates can deal with a number of other issues going forward.
Scott E
