The quickest, highly effective way to help with any of the bills under ‘State Bills NOW‘ is before the committee vote, anytime before the hearing date,  or after. (You won’t always know when the committee vote will occur after the hearing; it could be weeks later; you can check its progress on the bill’s page). 

First, check who your state legislators are at mdelect.net by your address.

Find the bill’s page on the main MGA site (MD General Assembly: https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite ) by typing the bill number (e.g., HB 123 or SB 456), or follow our link from the bill number. From the bill page, there’s a quick link to the committee it was assigned to, where you can click ‘Membership’ to see if any of your legislators are members. If so, CONTACT THEM with a brief call to their staff, or by leaving a voice message (even after hours) with your address, and say you’re a constituent. Calls might be best, and/or send an e-mail.  If you have a brief story about why it’s important to you, that’s great also. All legislators carefully track and care about opinions from their own constituents; and just a few few constituents can make a difference.

Each member has their own page with contact info, their committees etc. which you can find by clicking on their name from the Committee page (if they’re a member). Or here’s a link to get to your legislators’ own page, which is super quick to find from the main MGA page.

Generally don’t bother contacting legislators if you’re not their constituent (though lobbyists or subject experts might do this. If you have a relationship with *any* legislator, for example if you’ve donated to their campaign (which you cannot do during session), it’s worth contacting them if they’re on the committee.  Thanking legislators for co-sponsoring or for a vote is also worthwhile.

If the bill is voted out of committee (i.e. if the committee voted in favor), there will be a vote on the floor of the entire House or Senate, and then move to a committee in the opposite chamber, and maybe to the floor of the opposite chamber.  If it will be before one of the two chambers, all Delegates and/or Senators will vote on it so you can contact any of your state legislators.  And you can contact the Governor. At the very bottom of every page on the MGA site is a link ‘video tutorials’ with more info. 

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If you want to better understand a bill, from the bill page see the link: ‘Witness List’ with all the written testimony that was submitted for and against. If you don’t see it, it will show up later. If the bill was introduced in prior years, you can follow the link to the prior bill and read that testimony. Another useful link on the bill page which will eventually appear is ‘Fiscal & Policy Note’ with a summary in plain English. 

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Send a message to info (at) md-dcsam.org which will be forwarded to one of us for any questions at all.  Or contact us to attend one or more of the weekly meetings of the MDDCSAM Public Policy Committee (Tuesdays at 6 pm) open to ASAM/MDDCSAM members, with our expert consultant, Ann Ciekot.