general assembly
Supporting civil legal aid is a good investment
Listen to this articleWhen Gov. Wes Moore announced his 2024 housing package, the connection to the legal community at large might not have been readily apparent. Yet, within one of the pieces of legislation currently pending before the Maryland General Assembly is a provision that has the capacity to provide sustainable support to the Maryland Legal Services Corporation and the grantees it supports.
The Renters Rights and Stabilization Act of 2024 can help not only address the disparities within our landlord/tenant law framework, but also support and sustain the MLSC and in turn the civil legal aid organizations upon whom so much relies, by raising the filing surcharges in landlord/tenant matters to just below the national average and distributing those funds equally between a statewide Rental Assistance Voucher Program and the legislatively created MLSC Fund.
MLSC’s mission is to ensure low-income Marylanders have access to stable, efficient and effective civil legal assistance through the distribution of funds to nonprofit legal services organizations. It currently funds 46 organizations to work toward that mission across the entire state. The Maryland General Assembly created MLSC in 1982 to administer the state’s Interest on Lawyer Trust Accounts (IOLTA) program, and since that time MLSC grantees have assisted approximately 4 million Marylanders with a wide variety of civil legal needs.
In 1998, the General Assembly enacted surcharges in civil cases as a source of funding for MLSC, and those surcharges now amount to one of MLSC’s largest funding streams.
The funds from these increased surcharges will support legal services for over 82,000 Marylanders, directly benefiting over 160,000 individuals. MLSC grantees helped clients obtain more than $16.2 million in economic awards and avoid over $18.8 million in costs through their cases, for issues such as child support, consumer judgments and discharged debts.
Civil cases constitute
State lawmakers consider impeaching Franklin County state’s attorney, but make no promises
Franklin County State’s Attorney John Lavoie is digging in his heels, refusing to heed colleagues’ and lawmakers’ calls to resign after an investigation found that he harassed employees and created a hostile work environment as the county’s top prosecutor.
Left with no other methods to discipline the first-term Democrat and longtime prosecutor, lawmakers are considering the nuclear option: impeachment. But that road is a long and arduous one, and state lawmakers aren’t making any promises.
Just one day after the accusations against Lavoie came to light, House Speaker Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington, told VTDigger in a Wednesday interview that she and other legislative leaders are exploring the option of impeachment.
The mechanism has rarely been used in Vermont state history but is — according to a memo sent to Krowinski from House Clerk BetsyAnn Wrask on Tuesday — “the Sole Method to Remove a Constitutional Officer.” The memo went on to describe the seven-step process of impeachment, which began with a House resolution to form a committee to investigate the allegations.
“At this time, we need more information before we can make a decision about whether or not to move forward with a resolution,” Krowinski said Wednesday.
With the 2023 legislative session ending in a matter of weeks, Krowinski told VTDigger that such a committee, if formed, could work