The General Assembly also overturned a bunch of gubernatorial vetoes. One issue that did not come up was the proposal to redistrict the Congressional map in response to the redistricting in Texas and other states around the country. The Senate President is opposing the redistricting and it does not look as though it will go forward unless there is more consensus behind the redistricting proposal.
Election of New Speaker – The House of Delegates elected Delegate Joseline Pena-Melnyk as the new Speaker. Joseline has served 19 years as a delegate from District 21 which covers parts of Prince George’s and Anne Arundel County. She lives in College Park and was a former City Councilwoman. She was born in the Dominican Republic, moved to New York City when she was a child, and has lived the last 30 years in Maryland. She is the first Afro Latina Speaker of a State House in all of the United States. On a personal level, I sat with Joseline for 4 years when I was in the General Assembly and always admired her passion, intelligence, hard work and consensus building qualities. I think she’ll be a very good Speaker. There’s a good article in Maryland Matters that traces her rise from humble beginnings in the DR to her job as Speaker which I am adding at the end of this newsletter.
There have been a number of resignations in the last few months and so there will be a number of changes in leadership committees that will be announced before the session starts.
General Assembly Overturns Governor Vetoes
· Data Center Impact Study: The bill will require state agencies and the University of Maryland School of Business to study the impact of data center development in Maryland on the state’s environment, energy and economy.
· Renew Act: Mandates a study which will assess the costs of mitigating the effects of climate change in the state and will also evaluate whether fossil fuel companies should be compelled to foot the bill. The bill allocates $500,000 for the study.
· Creation of Reparations Commission: The bill establishes a commission to assess specific government policies from 1877 to 1965 and to examine how public and private institutions may have benefited from policies that led to discrimination. The commission is also charged with recommending appropriate reparations, from a statement of apology to monetary compensation or social service assistance.
· Stategic Energy Planning Office to produce forecasts about the regional electricity grid and its impact on Maryland
· Other vetoes. You can find out more about each bill by going to the General Assembly website and searching on the bill number https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite
§ Disability Service Animal Program HB 384
§ Instant Ticket Lottery Machines (Veterans and Fraternal Organizations) HB 328
§ Local Food Purchasing HB 56
§ Healthcare Ecosystem Cyber Work Group HB 333
§ Youth Centric Technology and Social Media Resource Guide HB 1316
The new House speaker: Forged by poverty, fueled by empathy
By:Bruce DePuyt-December 17, 20255:00 am (Maaryland MATTERS)
House Speaker Joseline Peña-Melnyk (D-Prince George's and Anne Arundel) addresses the chamber after being elected the first Afro-Latina presiding officer in the history of the Maryland General Assembly -- a far cry from her childhood in poverty in the Dominican Republic. (Photo Bryan P. Sears/Maryland Matters)
When she was a small child growing up in her native Dominican Republic, Joseline Peña-Melnyk would frequently return home from school at midday to find a house packed with relatives, but not a morsel of food.
The Peña family’s home was “tiny,” she recalls, a one-bedroom wooden structure with holes in the roof and a latrine in the yard. She frequently lived with as many as 17 aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents. They were too embarrassed to ask the proprietor of the local bodega for food on credit.
Young Joseline had no such qualms.
“I would go to the bodega,” the just-elected speaker of the House of Delegates said in a recent interview. “And I would tell the lady, ‘Muneca, my grandmother said if you can let us fiao’ — it’s a slang term, meaning to buy on credit — ‘can you give us 2 pounds of rice, a pound of beans, and some tomato paste and some cilantro and some salt? My mom, when she sends money, will pay you.’”
The shopkeeper said yes. “And then I would come home and we would eat!”
The story, which Peña-Melnyk tells now with relish, reflects the confidence that has fueled her improbable rise in politics, from election to the College Park City Council at age 37 to her unanimous choice Tuesday as House speaker.
“From early on, I was just fearless,” she told Maryland Matters. “Not ashamed. Not ashamed at all that someone would see me go [to the bodega] after other families had already eaten. So I would do that.”
The future legislator also watched her mother, the oldest of 14 children, labor to provide for her children, siblings and parents. Being around folks who worked hard but struggled to meet even their most basic needs instilled in her a strong sense of compassion.
“I learned to have empathy and to care about the things that really matter,” she said.
Peña-Melnyk first came to New York at age 7 with her mother and sister, before returning to the Dominican Republic at age 11 with her sister, while her mother stayed behind, working jobs in the garment district and sending money home. When she was 14, she returned to the U.S. for good.
Money was always tight. In the DR, her family used corn husks and newspaper for toilet paper. Uncles would pawn small appliances for cash. In New York, they relied on food stamps and other public assistance to supplement her mother’s wages. “We were very, very, very poor, and went through a lot of struggles — but we had a lot of love,” she recalled.
Peña-Melnyk began to learn English in school and from watching “Sesame Street” and “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.” When her mother needed help navigating the welfare system, her oldest daughter would help translate, soon translating for other Spanish-speaking mothers.
“[My mother] would volunteer me to translate for everybody that was waiting” in the welfare office, Peña-Melnyk said. “I had no business knowing people’s grown-up business. But what I did learn was that I did not want to be treated like these women — it was mostly women, women of color — were treated. [Clerks] would ask them questions that were really offensive.”
Peña-Melnyk’s mother began to refer to her daughter as “’abogadita,’ which means the little lawyer. I wouldn’t stay quiet…. At that age I knew that I wanted to do something with my life.”
In high school, Peña-Melnyk told her guidance counselor she wanted to go to college, despite having no idea what that meant. She attended Buffalo State College (a school she chose site unseen) and the State University of New York at Buffalo Law School. After a stint as a public defender in Philadelphia, she became a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington, D.C.
Law school was “transformational,” said Peña-Melnyk. Working with accused persons who struggled with disadvantaged upbringings became a particular passion. “I was like, ‘Wow, look at this law here. I can apply it. I can try to fight for fairness and justice. And I used the law to back me up — and my mouth. And my grit. [I learned] to leave it all out there.”
Del. Joseline Peña-Melnyk (D-Prince George’s and Anne Arundel). (Photo by Bryan P. Sears/Maryland Matters)
Elected to the House in 2006, she landed on the Health and Government Operations Committee, where she became steeped in issues ranging from abortion to long-term care, same-sex marriage to insurance to the pharmaceuticals industry. She grew close to Del. Shane Pendergrass (D-Howard), the long-serving committee chair whom she succeeded when Pendergrass retired in 2023.
In an interview last week, Pendergrass lavished praise on her former colleague, whom she considers a sister.
“She is the kindest, most generous, smartest and hardest-working person I have ever dealt with,” Pendergrass said. “She was my equal partner when I chaired HGO. I invited her into everything because I needed her help.
“It’s a very big job to be a chair of a committee,” Pendergrass said. “Nothing compared to being the speaker of the House, but still a big job. And I wanted her to be as educated about every issue that she could be so that she could help me make decisions. And she did.”
Peña-Melnyk was always “over-prepared” when it was her turn to defend a committee bill on the floor, Pendergrass recalled. She expects her to approach her role as speaker in the same manner.
The new speaker isn’t afraid to engage in the rough and tumble of politics. She ran against a slate of Democratic incumbents in District 21 in 2006. After publicly criticizing former Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks (D) for not having any Hispanics in her Cabinet, Peña-Melnyk endorsed her rival, David Trone, in the 2024 U.S. Senate primary.
Pendergrass said that when a state senator was killing House bills in large number out of apparent pique, Peña-Melnyk pressed for killing his bills in retribution. Pendergrass resisted at first, but then relented. The unnamed senator got the message, she said.
“She gets politics much more than I did,” Pendergrass said last week.
When Peña-Melnyk became chair of HGO, some Republicans on the panel considered a transfer to a new committee, perhaps concerned that the new boss would be too liberal or not as fair. Pendergrass said that one member — Del. Nik Kipke (R-Anne Arundel) — later stopped her in the hallway.
“We’re really glad we stayed,” Kipke told her. “We really like her. She’s [even] better than you are.”
She’s a liberal, I’m a conservative, but I do believe she is a good person who cares deeply about people — and she has a tremendous work ethic. She’s a workaholic. She’s just trying to get good things done for people.”
– Del. Nik Kipke (R-Anne Arundel), on working with Speaker Joseline Peña-Melnyk (D-Prince George's and Anne Arundel)
Kipke said he and Peña-Melnyk both arrived in Annapolis in 2007, and have served on the same committee the entire time. He estimates they’ve spent thousands of hours together.
“She’s a liberal, I’m a conservative, but I do believe she is a good person who cares deeply about people — and she has a tremendous work ethic. She’s a workaholic,” Kipke said. “She’s just trying to get good things done for people.”
He and Pendergrass both said they could recall numerous times when they overheard Peña-Melnyk on the phone, trying to arrange help for a constituent in need, often someone who didn’t live in her legislative district. “Not all politicians spend their time on those types of issues,” Kipke said.
Kipke said Peña-Melnyk has been particularly helpful expanding access to health care in Republican parts of Maryland.
“We’ve all talked about her being in this role, and the thing I’ve heard over and over again is you feel really welcome to disagree, to share your opinion,” he said. “She’s been very respectful to the Republicans on our committee.”
Pendergrass expects the new speaker to remember “people who have the least and need the most help…. She helps people. That’s who she is.”
Peña-Melnyk said she spent a lot of time in the lead-up to Tuesday’s vote reflecting on the many mentors she’s had over her 59 years — her mother and other relatives, that high school guidance counselor and numerous Annapolis figures, including Pendergrass, former Speaker Adrienne Jones and former lawmakers Shirley Nathan-Pulliam (the first African-Caribbean woman elected to the General Assembly), Peter Hammen, Delores Kelley and Gwendolyn Britt among them.
As one of the first Afro-Latina legislators in the nation to become a presiding officer, at a time when the federal government is targeting immigrants, Peña-Melnyk could become a go-to for national journalists. But she said her focus will remain on Maryland — and conducting herself as she always has, by doing her homework, listening with compassion and searching for consensus.
“I am famous for sitting everyone around a table, and just going around and listening. And I don’t speak,” she said. “After I have listened to everyone attentively, the answer comes to me.
“And I think that I am ready to do a good job — and to learn.”
