Gov. Larry Hogan scored a modest victory Tuesday as his legislation authorizing a voluntary tax checkoff to replenish the state's public financing fund for gubernatorial candidates passed the House.
Delegates voted 134-6 to approve the measure, the first on Hogan's agenda to pass one of the chambers. It now goes to the Senate, where a companion bill has yet to receive a committee vote.
Unlike some of Hogan's legislative proposals, the public financing bill has attracted widespread bipartisan support. The public financing system for governor's races had fallen into disuse after 1994 and remained inactive until last year, when the Republican Hogan and Democratic candidate Heather R. Mizeur both used it to finance their campaigns.
Those campaigns left the fund largely depleted and with no way to replenish it because the General Assembly repealed the tax checkoff in 2010. Hogan's legislation would replenish the fund in time for the 2018 election.