Against Everything, All The Time
The Maryland Freedom Caucus is now fighting against Adult Education and Sex Trafficking Victims, for some reason.
The Maryland Freedom Caucus has been a reliable no on literally everything this General Assembly session. Last time we joined them, they were voting against helping cancer patients. Now they apparently oppose teaching middle schoolers how to protect themselves from sexual absue and human trafficking.
HB355, sponsored by Harford County Delegate Steve Johnson, would require that Maryland’s existing sexual abuse and assault awareness programs include material on human and sex trafficking awareness for students in grades 6 through 8. It passed the House 127-5 on Friday. The five “no” votes came from the Freedom Caucus. The bill heads to the Senate.
The same bloc also voted against HB297, the MDiplomaWorks bill, which establishes an alternative pathway for adults to earn a high school diploma and expands the GED Option Program beyond English language learners to a broader population of students who fell through the cracks the first time. That one passed 124-8. The MDiplomaWorks pathway is a workforce development bill requested by the Moore administration’s Department of Labor. It is, to put it plainly, a bill designed to help more Marylanders finish their education and get jobs. But the Maryland Freedom Caucus found it objectionable.
What’s notable here is less the outcome, since both bills were going to pass regardless, and more the pattern. In a chamber where Republicans are already outnumbered 102-39, the Freedom Caucus has carved out a lane of voting “no” on measures that have virtually no opposition anywhere else in the building. Opposing human trafficking education and prevention for 12-year-olds is not a recognizable political philosophy. It is performance art.
The question Maryland Republicans running statewide in 2026 will eventually have to answer is whether they want to be associated with a motley crew that is against everything, all the time, in a year Republicans are already facing stiff headwinds. We may be starting to get our answer.
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