robert a zirkin

Gov. Larry Hogan is scheduled to sign about 200 bills, including measures the General Assembly passed to reform the University of Maryland Medical System board of directors, allow the private Johns Hopkins University to create a police force, and establish a Maryland Freedom of the Press Day.

Among nearly 200 bills Gov. Larry Hogan has signed into law, Maryland will honor journalists with "Freedom of the Press Day" on June 28. That's the anniversary of a shooting at The Capital newspaper in Annapolis that killed five employees. Maryland has 23 other commemorative periods.

Veteran State House correspondent C. Fraser Smith reflects on Mike Busch's death, Mike Miller's illness and transition in the State House.

An effort to give survivors of child sexual abuse more time to file lawsuits that failed in the Maryland Senate has been resurrected by the House of Delegates.

In the waning days of the Maryland General Assembly session, lawmakers are considering creating a new state office to mediate thousands of lawsuits from workers who have been sickened by asbestos exposure. There are more than 30,000 asbestos cases pending in Baltimore Circuit Court.

Over the objections of student protesters, Maryland’s House of Delegates has voted overwhelmingly to approve hotly debated legislation to authorize an armed police force for the private Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. The state Senate has passed a different version of the legislation.

A bill to allow certain terminally ill Marylanders to obtain medication to end their lives is advancing in the state Senate, but it has been changed so much that the leading advocacy group is withdrawing its support for the measure.

The Maryland Senate has given preliminary approval to a bill that would allow Johns Hopkins University to create a private, armed police force. Opponents, who object to "privatizing policing," spent more than an hour trying in vain to modify the measure.

Leaders of Maryland's General Assembly have named a work group to study legalizing recreational marijuana — a clear signal that no legislation will be passed this year. The bipartisan group will study issues with a deadline to report recommendations at the end of 2019.

After being changed significantly in a Maryland senate committee, Sen. Justin Ready’s bill seeking to hold those convicted of animal cruelty accountable unanimously passed the senate Thursday.

Sen. Justin Ready, R-District 5 (Carroll County) introduced a bill that would establish a legal procedure for people who have animals seized after being charged with animal cruelty. On Thursday, animal workers from across Maryland convened for a hearing in the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee.

A recent executive order signed by Gov. Larry Hogan and Attorney General Brian Frosh that denies government contracts to businesses that boycott Israel only applies to procurement contracts.

Maryland’s two-term Republican Gov. Larry Hogan urged a different direction for the GOP after taking the oath of office for another four years. Hogan had Jeb Bush introduce him and praised the traditional wing of the Republican Party, while condemning dysfunction in Washington.

The Maryland Republican Party was seeking to ride Gov. Larry Hogan's coattails to curb Democrats' power in General Assembly. Their effort failed.

Many of the hundreds of Maryland laws that take effect Monday extend protections for women. One explicitly bans using threats of shame or economic harm to coerce a person into having sex. Others address sexual assault, workplace harassment and the rights of female inmates.

With Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ben Jealous running on a campaign platform well to the left of center, some prominent Democrats are keeping a conspicuous distance. Some are even embracing the re-election campaign of Republican Gov. Larry Hogan.

Gov. Larry Hogan has used Maryland’s suites at sports stadiums to entertain family, reward state employees and honor charities — especially those focused on fighting cancer. The Republican governor also has invited executives of his private real estate business.

Though Maryland has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the country, none of them could have prevented the massacre of five people in the Annapolis Capital newsroom Thursday. The weapon police say was used, a pump-action rifle, isn't regulated by state law.

The results of a Democratic primary that saw several incumbents fall to progressive challengers strike at the very foundation of Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller's 32-year reign over the Maryland Senate.

All of the 188 seats in the Maryland General Assembly — 47 in the Senate, 141 in the House of Delegates — were on the ballot Tuesday, forcing many veteran incumbents in the Baltimore region and elsewhere to face possible ouster as voters decided whether to make sweeping changes in Annapolis. 

Ben Jealous' victory is just one sign about where Maryland's voters are in advance of a pivotal election.

The Sun makes endorsements in the Democratic and Republican primaries for legislative seats in Baltimore county.

With voters now casting their ballots, the intensity has ratcheted up in the Democratic primary for Baltimore County executive, with attack ads airing on the radio and negative fliers landing in voters’ mailboxes.

Baltimore County Councilwoman Vicki Almond of Reisterstown is one of the three leading Democratic candidates running for Baltimore County executive.

A Maryland House of Delegates bill that would permit prosecutors to introduce evidence of past assaults in some trials for sex offenses was approved by a Senate committee Thursday, clearing the way for it to be enacted.

A sweeping crime bill that passed the Maryland Senate with Gov. Larry Hogan's support is being attacked by critics who call it an election year ploy tainted by harsh, racist sentencing proposals.

Marylanders stopped by police could carry up to an ounce of marijuana and only face civil fines under a bill the state Senate passed Monday night.

A bill that would allow judges to admit evidence of similar sexual offenses in trials of accused rapists is poised to pass the Maryland Senate but faces its biggest hurdle in the House of Delegates.

Baltimore County state Sen. Bobby Zirkin is so popular and well-funded that no one has challenged him in years. But a group of his constituents, frustrated that he isn’t progressive enough, are putting up a candidate of their own this year: PIkesville attorney Sheldon Laskin.

The Maryland Senate passed a sweeping crime bill Monday night that would raise the maximum prison sentences for dozens of criminal offenses, mostly involving repeat gun offenders.

He was everyone's "buddy" in the legislature and back home in Harford County, but there was considerable depth of purpose and thought behind the hail fellow well met personality of State Sen. H. Wayne Norman Jr. who died suddenly March 5.

Gov. Larry Hogan attended an afternoon roll call for Baltimore police officers on Thursday to voice his support for them and the department, saying, “We’re going to have your back.”

The Maryland Senate on Monday mourned the death of Sen. Wayne Norman, a Harford County Republican who died Sunday.

Wayne Norman, a Bel Air attorney, former state delegate and current state senator, died Sunday, the county executive's office announces.

The Maryland Senate is preparing a comprehensive crime bill that jettisons two key elements of Gov. Larry Hogan's proposal to combat street violence — mandatory minimum sentences and a crackdown on gangs.

The Maryland Senate passed a bill that revises the state's current law governing cyberbullying of minors

First of all, I want to sincerely thank the citizens of the 35th District of Maryland (Harford and Cecil Counties) for allowing me to represent them in Annapolis

Maryland is poised to let victims who conceive a child during a sexual assault to ask the court to strip parental rights from their rapists. It's take more than a decade to pass the law.

The Maryland Senate voted Friday to override Gov. Larry Hogan’s veto of a bill requiring employers to provide paid sick leave to hundreds of thousands of Maryland workers.

Gov. Larry Hogan threw his support behind a bill to let courts terminate the parental rights of fathers when the child was conceived through rape.

New laws on sexual assault shift focus to victims' rights

Baltimore is on pace to set a homicide rate record for the third year in a row. State senators devised an hours-long hearing to look for solutions.

State legislators have scheduled a hearing in Annapolis next month to discuss the record levels of violence in Baltimore this year and potential solutions.

Gov. Larry Hogan visited Stevenson University in Owings Mills Thursday to mark the transfer of the former Rosewood Center property to the growing school.

In the unpredictable world of Maryland politics, Baltimore County plays a pivotal role.

Just as Stevenson University has the chance to clean up a patch of Owings Mills, so too may the Rosewood deal help heal our political climate.

The state plans to sell the former Rosewood Hospital Center, in institution for the developmentally disabled until its closing in 2009, to Stevenson University for the school's planned expansion.

Over the next few weeks, Baltimore County will be Maryland's ground zero in the controversy over President Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration.

We are a Democrat and a Republican, members of the Maryland State Senate from different parts of the state, who serve together on the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. The most important word in that first sentence is "together." Not Democrat. Not Republican. Because we believe that even in this new era of political divisiveness, the most important thing that we do as legislators is to work together for the common good.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has ordered federal prosecutors to return to tough policies against drug abusers, ending a push by the Obama administration to clear prisons of lower-level criminals serving long, mandatory minimum sentences.