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House Overrides Three Hogan Vetoes

Joel McCord

    The House of Delegates voted Wednesday to override three of Republican Governor Larry Hogan’s vetoes from the last General Assembly session. Two of those votes came by wide margins, but one was a close call in the overwhelmingly Democratic chamber.

The House voted by identical 90-51 margins to override vetoes of a bill to require online hotel booking companies to collect sales tax for hotel rooms in Howard County and one to spend $2 million to upgrade Maryland Hall in Annapolis. But the override of a veto of a felon’s voting rights bill squeezed by with the minimum 85 votes after lengthy impassioned debate.

The bill gives ex-felons the right to vote after they’re released from prison but before they finish their terms of parole. Existing Maryland requires ex-felons to successfully complete the terms of their probation before restoring their right to vote.

Susan Auman, a Baltimore County Republican, said the delegates were talking about allowing “murderers, child pornographers, rapists, kidnapers, arsonists, drug kingpins, armed robbers, human traffickers and those who have committed hate crimes" to vote.

But Cory McCray, the Baltimore Democrat who sponsored the bill, said they were talking about families, friends and neighbors.

“Our judicial system,” he said, “whether that be a judge, whether that’s a parole board or similar authority, deemed it okay for our family, our friends, our neighbors to merit the opportunity to re-integrate into our community.”

The Senate is to take up those vetoes and three others on Thursday. One statewide bill mirrors the Howard County hotel tax bill.