How to find your district, senator, and delegate?

• Go to the Maryland General Assembly website.
• On the homepage, click on the Members tab.
• On the dropdown menu, select Find My Representatives.
• Select Lookup.
• Write your address and zip code and click find.

How to apply for District Aid Delegate Scholarship?

• The best place to start is here: https://mhec.maryland.gov/preparing/Pages/FinancialAid/ProgramDescriptions/prog_delegate.aspx
• On that link, you will find a step-by-step guide to applying for a scholarship. Every delegate and Senator has a yearly allotment for awards.

How to apply for an internship?

• Contact your college or university intern coordinator, career counselor, or department Dean for an application. 
• If you do not know the contact person for your college/university, please call Carol Pelli Intern Coordinator Phone: 410-946-5124 Washington, DC Area: 301-970-5124 Toll Free: 800-492-7122 Ext. 5124 Email: studentprograms@mlis.state.md.us
• All placements are made during the fall semester, and the MGA Intern Office should receive applications by October 31.
• Students presently enrolled in a public or independent college or university are eligible to apply. Students must be at least 18 years of age, have a minimum 3.0 cumulative grade-point average, and show proof of competency in college composition.
• Page Program 
• Internships are only available for college students.
• However, the Page Program is a great opportunity for high school students.
• Senior class students, who are at least 16 years of age, of all Maryland public and nonpublic high schools, and who are residents within the State of Maryland, are eligible to apply. https://www.aacps.org/Page/5703

How to search for a Bill written by your district Delegate or Senator?

• Go to the General assembly Maryland website.
• On the homepage, go to Members and click it.
• There will be a dropdown menu when you click members.
• On the dropdown menu, select FIND MY REPRESENTATIVES.
• Select on Lookup.
• Write your address and zip code and click find.
• You can see the number of your district and the name of your senator and delegate.
• Select the name of your legislators and go to legislation.
• There you can see the list of the bills written by your delegate.

How a bill becomes a law?

• The bills introduced by the senate or delegate goes to committee in the chamber of the legislator who proposes it.
• Once introduced, everything is uploaded online for easy access and to cut back on paper waste.
• In committee, the potential legislation would go to the appropriate subcommittee
• The subcommittee will hear testimony from stakeholders and lobbyists before voting on whether or not to advance the bill to the full committee. 
• Committees hear from those who wish to testify (lobbyists, stakeholders, etc.) and eventually vote whether or not to advance legislation. These votes are made public
• If accepted, the bill is transmitted to 2nd reading, 3rd reading, and then to the opposite chamber. If it originates in the House, a Senate can cross-file the bill. If it originates in the Senate, a member of the House can cross-file the bill. A Delegate or Senator can also submit the legislation in the opposite chamber themselves without having a member of the other chamber cross-filing.
• If the bill is passed in both the chambers, then the bill will be transferred to the referral committee. 
• After the bill passes from the opposite chamber, it will be transferred to review again in the original chamber then finally to the Governor.
• The Governor can either sign the bill into law, allow the bill to become law without their signature, or veto it.
• If the bill is vetoed, the General Assembly can override the veto if they have a supermajority. 

How can anyone testify for or against the Bill?

You can find an agenda for upcoming hearings on the Committee’s page. 

On the day that a Committee is hearing testimony on a bill, those who wish to testify can sign up on the electronic board outside of each Committee chamber.

Online Contact cannot be used to submit written committee hearing testimony. The person should be available and upload the testimony on the computers available in the committee’s room.

Those providing testimonies are given a timeframe they have to stay within, generally around three minutes. Written testimony can also be provided to the Committee, but make sure your written testimony and oral testimony aren’t the same. Use the written testimony to expand on your oral testimony and provide additional documentation to back your oral testimony.

• For questions requiring a response please call the committee.

Sample Bills:

Legislation with Fiscal Notes: HB1564 Enacted into Law in  2020, and HB1384 Enacted into Law in 2019

 from 2019. 

–And if you click on the camera icon next to the committee for each of these bills, you will be able to watch testimony and the bill being debated.