Governing Magazine has released a summary of its “top 10 issues” that are expected to stir debate in state houses across the country in 2014. From their list, several themes are already taking shape in Maryland as the legislative session approaches.
For states throughout the country this year, there’s a common theme: a climate of uncertainty coupled with a sense of genuine opportunity. Amid worries about the federal government’s failure to boost funding for infrastructure, many states are taking steps to produce that funding on their own. Congress seems to have stalled—again—in its efforts to reform the immigration system, but states are enacting bills designed to grant new rights to some of their undocumented residents. And after a period in which higher education programs faced dramatic cuts, states are putting money back into those programs—some of them more efficiently than in the past.
Among the other vigorous Maryland topics Governing rates highly: Medicaid, Minimum Wage Laws, and Transportation Funding.