Hill: Yes, I support the preliminary findings of the Kirwan Commission. Clearly articulated findings and recommendations will help build the political will for needed investments and implementation to ensure a world-class public education system that supports all students. As a State Delegate, I have supported investment in programs including; universal pre-k, trade and technical training, p-tech and other challenging and accelerated curricula, and additional funding and resources for schools serving students facing barriers to education such as poverty, disability or language. The Commission shed new light on the critical importance of identifying, hiring and retaining good teachers, assuring diversity in administrative and teaching staff and providing compensation and incentives commensurate with the importance and demands of teaching. Additionally, the Community Schools Initiative and legislation that I have championed recognizes the importance of behavioral health and support in schools at all levels. I will support new legislation based on the recommendations of the Commission and look forward to reviewing and moving forward on their funding formulas and implementation.

Hill: Cancelling the Red Line without offering a comprehensive alternative set the efforts to address transportation needs, and particularly those of the Baltimore metropolitan area, back decades. In and of themselves the Baltimore Link, additional lanes on the beltway and parkway, ride-sharing and autonomous vehicles are not the solution. Investment in affordable, reliable mass transit – maintenance and expansion – is critical and the decision of this administration to reverse direction was shortsighted and ill advised from job, work force, economic, ecologic and social justice standpoints. Lowering tolls on public byways, while politically popular, undermines our ability to adequately fund our transportation needs, particularly as increased fuel efficiency and resistance to higher levies steadily decreases gas tax revenues. Plans for public –private road and bridge projects mean higher cost to the public, as tolls levied privately tend to include profit margins that would not be part of tolls levied by the state. The MAG-lev promises to speed transit between the Baltimore – Washington hubs already served by AMTRAK, MARC, etc. People outside of the “hubs” will still need cars to reach the stations, communities through which its infrastructure will be built will be impacted, and the Washington-to-Boston commuters, for which this link is the 1st stage of a new corridor-long line, are the primary beneficiaries. It does not mitigate the failings of the state transportation system. Transportation needs outside of the metro areas are also inadequately addressed, particularly the transportation needs of our aging population.

Hill: Although I fully support the legalization of medical cannabis in the state, I do not currently support legalization of recreational marijuana. I believe we would benefit from more experience with our medical cannabis industry, the experiences of other states that have legalized recreational use and from having better technology and science for determining and measuring levels which would constitute impaired use.

Hill: Our work in the General Assembly and years of hard work has improved the health of the Chesapeake Bay, which is now the healthiest it has been in decades. We need to continue to use every tool at our disposal including lawsuits against the EPA and other federal entities, collaborative agreements with other states who are part of the Bay’s watershed, and supportive legislative and regulatory measures. We need to continue to review and assure that the use of potentially toxic herbicides, pesticides and other chemicals (similar to the Atrazine legislation I introduced in 2017) are updated. I am committed to implement provisions of the international climate change pact, to ensure enforcement of environmental regulations and to mitigate against all toxic runoff from rain, industrial and agricultural sources. I support enlarging and preserving oyster sanctuaries. I am committed to limiting and not disallowing further piping of natural gas and oil through environmentally sensitive waterways.

Hill: Access to health care is a right. As a delegate, I’ve worked to ensure improved access and quality are realized statewide and that the decrease number of uninsured and other benefits resulting from the ACA translate to improved health status. Congress’ failure to go further and bring down health care delivery costs, and the efforts of this congress and administration to dismantle the system, required an aggressive response from Annapolis, and I am proud to be have played a role. Requesting a federal 1332 waiver and providing funding for re-insurance were important, but stop-gap, until a comprehensive, long term solution is found. My work on the ACA workgroup, familiarity with the opioid crisis and other addiction and behavioral health problems, efforts to bring transparency to the pharmaceutical pricing, and recognition of the nexus between health care and our economic, environmental, criminal and social justice challenges have affirmed my belief that a radical change is needed. My contribution to the discussion as a physician and patient advocate has been, and will continue to be, important. I’ve conceptually supported single-payer, universal healthcare for years, believing it could only happen if the people, and not the government, called for it. We’re now in that moment. Along with other suggestions, legislation seemingly offering a clear pathway to transitioning was introduced in 2018 and will be considered in preparation for next session. Additional pieces, like negotiated drug prices and catastrophic coverage, may need to be added, but I believe Maryland will make the move.

Hill: Support Baltimore City’s implementation of violence reduction measures. Fund community initiatives including programs such as Safe Streets. Fund and provide proper education infrastructure and tools. Reform the police department and create trust. Offer viable alternatives to criminal activity by comprehensively addressing the multiple challenges and inadequacies with respect to housing, jobs, transportation and opportunity. Engage citizens in crafting solutions. Continue the path of criminal justice reform that diminishes or even negates the negative impact that a corrupt system has had on the family and communities. Consider legalizing and regulating drugs to bring the trade it out of the underground and create legal methods of settling business disputes. Persists. Many, if not most of the solutions have been tried in some form or another before. What is needed is a long term commitment of dollars and effort, since we cannot expect to reverse generations of oppression and marginalization, miseducation and broken trust in 3 - 10 years.

Hill: Maryland’s business climate is supportive of large corporations, particularly with a national or international presence, and inadequately supports start-up, small and medium sized businesses. This is because short-term benefits are easier to perceive, promote and build support around than are long-term gains. The system favors attracting new businesses over growing businesses and does so too often with “investments” that are not adequately evaluated against cost or alternative. This is unfortunate since it has clearly been shown that the net benefits, of investing in the development, growth and expansion of Maryland- and locally-based business far outweigh those of inducing outside businesses to come to the state. This is not an either/or proposition; we need a healthy mix and presence of businesses throughout the state across multiple industries and at all levels from production of raw materials, through manufacturing and sales. The General Assembly has started to implement the recommendations of the Augustine Commission. We should also take a broad range of factors into consideration and, in addition to how we traditionally weigh business and economic decisions, view them through an equity lens.

Hill: I support, and, as a delegate, have introduced legislation during the last three sessions in support of the creation of a non-partisan, independent body to draw legislative and congressional district maps. I understand that the timing and way in which we move towards such a system has implications at the national level. At this point it is prudent to see how the Supreme Court rules on the issues of gerrymandering and how prescriptive they may or may not be in their decision and possible recommendations of constitutionally acceptable solutions

Hill: While the Law Enforcement Bill of Rights was drafted to provide due process to law enforcement officers who were under internal investigation and procedural and disciplinary standings when the investigation turn up wrong doing. Although a national model when passed in 1974, some of the protections granted have proven to be problematic when considered in the context of a citizens rights and the rights of the citizenry to hold the police department and its employees accountable in carrying out the duties to protect and serve. Recommendations for reform have been argued and some changes made, but additional reforms should be considered. A formal review process, beyond the debates and negotiations seen when legislation about reforms are heard before committee, should be undertaken. Among other things the study should include comparisons with similar statutes in other states and for other government employees groups in Maryland. The report generated should outline which of the provision specifically address due process rights, which offer protections outside of those rights, how the rights granted differ from those in force elsewhere, how they impact other imperatives of the force and specific recommendations for updating them, giving due consideration to how policing and mechanisms for ensuring adequate training and compliance with departmental rules have changed since the Bill of Rights was written.

Hill: In addition to the steps we’ve already taken to better educate opioid prescribers, dispensers, users, first responders and the general public as to the nature and extent of the problem, we’ve also increased available interventions and began to address the problem as a behavioral health problem. Additionally, we should 1) direct more resources to identifying and addressing the underlying behavioral, social, psychological and other circumstances that lead to use and abuse of these and other addictive mood altering agents; 2) increase the number treatment beds and range of facilities available - including requiring hospitals to take more responsibility for providing acute, intermediate and long term treatment inpatient and outpatient treatment offerings; 3)push our federal partners to move Ibogaine and marijuana from schedule 1 to schedule 2 so that adequate research can be done to determine what, if any role they may each have in treating addiction for Ibogaine, and pain for marijuana; 4) improve tools for identifying and taking down major suppliers; and 5) consider whether decrimnalization or legalization of all drugs, with regulation and oversight , is part of the solution.

Hill: Income inequality is so intricately sewn into our societal and economic fabric that a multipronged, intentional, global approach is needed at the federal, staet and local levels, to extricate it. A livable wage indexed to inflation is part of the solution, but needs to be implemented with effort made to mitigate against unintended consequences , and does not on its on address the problem of individuals being held to the same salary or wage for years. Undoing the impact of redlining and other institutionalized practices of race and class discriminatory practices through enforcement of antidiscrimination laws and regulations in housing and lending, eliminating preditory lending practices, opening opportunities for microlending, innovation incubators and intentionally looking to correct in areas of past discrimantion for the damage cause by those practices. Of course radically changing our approach to education to ensure that a good quality, free, education through associates degree or trade certification is provided is key.

Hill: Having recieved a “D” in the 2015 report by the Stae Integrity Project, a number of changes have been made in the in the way Maryland addresses transparency, but as the issue continued to play out in the 2018 legislative session, the problem has clearly not been adequately addressed. The creation of the public information compliance board and ombudsman at the Attorney General’s office are too new to determine their effectiveness or whther their roles shold be broadened. The technologyallowing for live streaming of public meetings should be uniformly available and consistantly used, and agency web sites which often fail to have basic information readily accesable should do so.