Who We Are

The Baltimore County Progressive Democrats Club works within the Democratic Party to advance progressive policies that put people first at the local, state, and federal levels by:

  • Endorsing and supporting progressive candidates
  • Working to increase voter registration and voter turnout
  • Ensuring the community is heard by elected representatives and the media
  • Proposing and supporting legislation in the Maryland General Assembly and the Baltimore County Council
  • Respecting people impacted by systemic discrimination by actively soliciting their input, hearing their voices, and supporting their priorities

Our Positions

Economic Fairness

  • Accelerate the increase of the statewide minimum wage to $15/hour while indexing to cost of living and broadening it to all workers
  • Support workers unions and the right of employees to unionize
  • Provide affordable housing and address homelessness in a humane and just way
  • Achieve pay equity for women and minorities
  • Reduce income inequality through progressive tax policy 
  • Mandate paid family leaves
  • Fight child and family poverty and its consequences
  • Increase resources for small business development
  • Achieve regulatory fairness for all businesses
  • Reduce corporate financial and economic concentration
  • Increase consumer protections
  • Eliminate means testing based on marital status

Political and Election Fairness

  • Promote diversity among elected officials and leadership and recruit a diverse set of candidates for local and state office
  • Remove barriers to voter registration and voting in Maryland, including instituting same-day party change
  • Fight voter suppression targeting minority communities and expand voter registration efforts in these historically marginalized communities
  • Adopt ranked choice voting
  • Work toward a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and reserve constitutional rights for human beings, not corporations  
  • Reduce the influence of money in politics through public financing of county and state political campaigns and with greater transparency in campaign finance
  • End gerrymandering nationally
  • Continue to push for more accessible and equitable voting

Health Care

  • Work toward “Medicare for all” or similar single-payer healthcare approaches that provide affordable, accessible, and comprehensive healthcare for all Americans
  • Protect reproductive rights and access to care
  • Ensure essential medications are affordable by increasing government ability to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies
  • Increase community-led health initiatives, and expand and strengthen community health centers to improve access
  • Expand behavioral health and addiction services
  • Reduce gun violence
  • End medical debt
  • Support price transparency of medical billing

Public Education

  • Use public-education funds only for public schools
  • Distribute sufficient education resources equitably among all communities
  • Continue advocating that all communities get modern school facilities
  • Expand eligibility for Universal Pre-K
  • Support free post-secondary trade education, workforce development programs, and community and state college education.
  • Support affordable, quality childcare
  • Provide universal free school breakfast and lunch
  • Support educational programs and districting decisions that create schools with diverse student populations
  • Support the implementation of the Blueprint of Maryland’s Future and its provisions and policies
  • Continue expansion of behavioral intervention and mental health resources in schools
  • End the school to prison pipeline

Community Investment

  • Expand affordable housing countywide especially in high-opportunity areas, and follow through with consent decree
  • Invest in low income and historically redlined  communities
  • Invest in planned development tailored to communities’ unique needs, based on their input
  • Support creation of a regional transit authority for the Baltimore region
  • Work toward lead-free communities
  • Support the continued expansion of affordable broadband and infrastructure buildout
  • Support more actions to limit the increase in rent beyond the cost of living
  • Support more transit-oriented development
  • Expand circulators and purchase zero emission circulator vehicles
  • Build the Red Line
  • Support regional government partnership
  • Support public libraries

Environment

  • Promote efficient land use with “smart growth” development policies
  • Protect the Chesapeake Bay and all the state’s watersheds
  • Expand clean energy and create good-paying clean-energy union jobs
  • Expand county parks, greenways, bikeways, and tree-planting programs
  • Protect and expand the forest canopy and strengthen forest conservation requirements for new development
  • Provide universal county recycling bins
  • Support environmentally sustainable infrastructure
  • Remove trash incineration from the renewable energy portfolio
  • Move toward zero waste
  • Invest in research and development for genuinely environmentally-friendly solutions to waste
  • Ensure that all communities have a right to clean air, water, land, and access to green space, and reverse past practices that disproportionately impacted low-income and communities of color

Government Transparency and Accountability

  • Establish that transparency, accountability, and citizen involvement are paramount in all workings of government
  • Codify into law a citizen-driven county budget process
  • Expand the county–community liaison system for better communications
  • Work to create a more inclusive government for immigrants and non-English speakers
  • Promote the use of inclusive and accurate language in governmental communications with regards to race, ethnicity, gender, and identity
  • Promote digital access to government meetings and hearings with the ability to submit testimony virtually
  • Support efforts to increase access of elected officials to constituents and media

Social Justice

  • Eliminate housing discrimination in any form
  • Oppose voluntary state and local cooperation with federal immigration enforcement beyond that required by Constitutionally-mandated federal law
  • Support disability rights
  • Support LGBTQIA+ rights
  • Expand access and eligibility for expungement for criminal records
  • Support police transparency and accountability to include civilian oversight
  • Support police training and policies that focus on community policing and conflict de-escalation
  • Reduce contact with police for people in mental health crisis while ensuring that individuals appropriately trained and skilled in interacting with people in mental health crisis are immediately available
  • Promote “Ban the Box” legislation for housing, job, and college applications.
  • Reform the pretrial system to support that individuals are innocent until proven guilty and remove policies that are racially or economically bias
  • Support affirmative-action policies in employment, education, and contracting
  • Legalize marijuana to ensure benefits go to communities harmed by current and past policies

We seek to achieve these goals by actively and frequently engaging with elected representatives and the citizens within Baltimore County communities, encouraging increased voter registration and participation, and supporting candidates and legislation that advance these and other progressive positions.