Senator Barbara Mikulski Announces Retirement
U.S. Senator Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) announced today that she has decided not to run for re-election. Mikulski, who will complete her fifth term in office in January, 2017, says she wants to focus for the next two years on working for her constituents and for the nation.
“For me, service is about solving problems for my constituents,” Mikulski said in a prepared statement. “With my own re-election on the horizon, I thought long and hard about how I want to spend the next two years—what is it I want to campaign for, for you or for me? I had to decide whether to spend my time fighting to keep my job or fighting for your job. Do I spend my time raising money or raising hell to meet your day-to-day needs?”
Mikulski, who was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1976 from Maryland’s third district, was one of only two women Senators serving when she took office in 1987. She is the longest-serving woman in the U.S. Congress.
City Police Create Survivor’s Advisory Board
Baltimore City Police are reaching out to mothers who have lost children through violence with the creation of a new Survivor’s Advisory Board. City Police Commissioner Anthony Batts joined surviving family members in announcing this panel that has come together to create better communication between families that have lost loved ones and the Baltimore Police Department.
Two local advocacy groups, Mothers of Murdered Sons & Daughters, and A Mother’s Cry, are working with the police department to help solve cases involving their family members.
Man Hit By Gunfire Near Court Building
City police are looking into a shooting last night near the eastside District Court building. A man took a shot to the rear end in the 1200 block of East North Avenue shortly before midnight. No word on a possible suspect or motive.
Cardin Delivering Keynote Address At UB Symposium
Senator Ben Cardin is delivering the keynote address today at a University of Baltimore School of Law symposium on international human rights. The Democrat plans to touch on a number of topics, including ISIS, the Russian incursion into Ukraine and the need for the U.S. to stand up to human rights abusers around the world.
MD Senators Honor Thurgood Marshall
U.S. Senators Barbara A. Mikulski and Ben Cardin (both D-Md.) last week introduced the Thurgood Marshall’s Elementary School Study Act (S. 610) to honor the legacy of civil rights champion, Supreme Court Justice and Baltimorean Thurgood Marshall. The legislation would recognize his alma matter, Public School 103 in West Baltimore, as a National Historic Site.
“Thurgood Marshall was not always known as a civil rights champion and gifted legal mind, he was once a student living and learning in West Baltimore,” said Cardin, a senior member of the Environment and Public Works Committee. “The stories, though they may be apocryphal, of Marshall reading the Constitution in the basement of P.S. 103 during detention typify the American Dream. Preserving P.S. 103 would be not only a fitting tribute to a great Marylander, but also an enduring symbol of the importance of education in shaping great Americans.”
The bill would instruct the Secretary of the Interior to study the feasibility of including P.S. 103 as a unit of the National Park System. The bill would also call on the Secretary of the Interior to study means by which public and private groups could contribute to the preservation of the historically significant site.
Terps Men Jump Into Top Ten
The University of Maryland men's basketball team is back in the USA Today top ten. The Terrapins, fresh off an upset of former number four Wisconsin last week, jumped five places to number nine this week. Entering the final week of the regular season, the Terps are 24-5 overall and 12-4 in the Big Ten, trailing only Wisconsin in their conference. q The Badgers fell from fourth to fifth place despite sewing up the Big Ten regular season title and the University of Kentucky remained at number one.