Midday

The property tax rate in the city of Baltimore is roughly twice as high as any other jurisdiction in MD. For decades, candidates for public office in the city have feigned interest in reducing taxes for homeowners and businesses, and some modest reductions have taken place from time to time.

Now, a group of civic leaders have entered into the conversation determined to take decisive, dramatic action with a proposal to cut the tax rate nearly in half over a period of six years, and to change the city charter so the annual reductions can’t be reversed by whomever happens to be in elected office at the time.

The group has organized itself as a coalition called “Renew Baltimore.” Today on Midday: a conversation about their proposal, and its implications for businesses, homeowners and the city coffers.

Andre Davis is a retired federal judge who served as Baltimore City Solicitor. He joins us on Zoom…

Anirban Basu is the Chairman and CEO of the Sage Policy Group and the host of The Morning Economic Report on WYPR. He joins us on Zoom as well…

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Today on Midday, we’re going to talk taxes, and a proposal to dramatically reduce the property tax rate in Baltimore City.

But we begin with a quick update on MD's 2022 primary election with WYPR’s John Lee, who covers Baltimore County…

John Lee joins us on our digital line from Baltimore.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Tom's guest today is Eric Holder, who served as the 82nd Attorney General of the United States during the first six years of the Obama Administration. He was the first African American to serve in that position. Today, Holder is working to advance voting rights with the organization he founded in 2016 and now chairs called the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.

The NDRC works to remedy the gerrymandering that makes so many areas of the country poorly represented in Congress. Holder contends that voter suppression is as old as the republic itself, and he believes basic fixes are needed to counter the anti-democratic impulses that lead to laws that target people of color to make voting harder.

When the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in its 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision, many states responded by enacting draconian voter restriction laws. Mr. Holder says it made him realize that the Supreme Court and the Congress are facing what he calls a “modern day existential crisis,” and that our democracy can only be pulled back from the brink of disaster by rigorous reforms to the most basic tenet of our representative government: voting.

In his new book, Mr. Holder and his co-author Sam Koppelman observe that the country is operating with an “unrepresentative Senate, a gerrymandered House, an anti-democratic Electoral College and a stolen Supreme Court.” And they offer prescriptions for reforms.

The book is called Our Unfinished March:  The Violent Past and Imperiled Future of the Vote-A History, A Crisis, A Plan.

Eric Holder joins us on Zoom from Washington, DC.

This conversation was recorded on June 28, 2022, so we aren't taking any listener calls today.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

It's time for another visit with Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck, who joins Tom each week with her reviews of the regional stage. Today, she spotlights the six plays being showcased at this year's Contemporary American Theater Festival in Shepherdstown, West Virginia.

This year's plays include Whitelisted, by Chisa Hutchinson; The Fifth Domain, by Victor Lesniewski; Babel, by Jacqueline Goldfinger; Ushuaia Blue, by Caridad Svich; The House of the Negro Insane, by Terence Anthony; and Sheepdog, by Kevin Artigue.

The Contemporary American Theater Festival continues through July 31 at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, West Virginia.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Joining Tom now is the great singer, Maria Muldaur. Her career spans more than 56 years, 43 solo albums, six Grammy nominations and countless world tours. It was in 1974, when she cemented her place in music history with this mega-hit, "Midnight at the Oasis.

"Maria Muldaur will be appearing tonight at Keystone Korner in Baltimore, and she joins us now on the phone…

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Tom's first guest today on Midday is Lisa Snowden. She’s the editor-in-chief of the Baltimore Beat, a Black-owned and Black-controlled newspaper and online journal. After a brief run a few years ago, it will be back next month with substantial philanthropic funding, a new team and a focus on underserved and under-represented communities.

Lisa Snowden joins us on our digital line from Baltimore.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

One of the longest and weirdest primary election campaign season is over. In this low turnout election, more than a half a million people requested mail-in ballots, and not one of them has been counted. A Maryland law, unique in the country, requires that election officials wait until tomorrow at 10:00 in the morning to start counting the ballots in the form that most voters chose to cast them.

So, on this morning after, what do we know, and what do we know that we don’t know? We do know that this was an unprecedented election in many respects, and to reflect on that we're delighted to be joined by two great friends who have spent more than a few years observing Maryland politics.

Josh Kurtz is the founding editor of Maryland Matters.

Jayne Miller is an award-winning investigative reporter at WBAL TV 11.

Jayne has announced that she’s retiring from WBAL TV at the end of this month, after after more than 40 years at the station. In today's final segment, she talks with Tom about her long career covering Baltimore, and what’s next.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

It’s Primary Election Day in Maryland. Polls opened at 7:00 Tuesday morning. They will remain open until 8:00 tonight. If you’re voting with a mail-in ballot, you have until 8:00 tonight to drop your ballot in a drop box, or have it postmarked.

If you are an eligible voter who has not yet registered to vote, it’s not too late. You may register at your polling place. Go to the MD Board of Elections website to find out where your polling place is.

Polling places for some voters have changed since the last time we voted, because MD adopted new districts, based on data from the 2020 Census. The districts proposed by Democrats in the General Assembly were challenged in court, and the legal wrangling took some time to sort out, causing election officials to delay the primary until today. It was originally scheduled to take place three weeks ago, on June 28th.

So, if you’re a voter who is a little confused about what’s going on this time around, you’re not alone. And, as it turns out, there’s been plenty of confusion on the part of some election officials as well. Tom's next guest is Joan Jacobson, a former reporter for the Baltimore Sun and the author of two books. She lives in Baltimore City, and she encountered all sorts of problems in her efforts to get a correct mail-in ballot. She is visiting family in Florida, where she joins us on Zoom…

Then, Tom speaks with Brenda Wintrode, who covers state government, agencies and policies for our partner news organization, The Baltimore Banner…

While polls close at 8:00 tonight, acceptance and concession speeches, a usual part of election nights, will likely not take place tonight. Results in the statewide races may not be known for several days, or longer, given that about a half a million voters requested mail-in ballots, and officials can’t begin to count them until Thursday morning.

When we have questions about voting, and the history of voting in Maryland, we turn to John Willis. He served as MD Secretary of State from 1995 - 2003. He is executive in residence at the University of Baltimore, and a scholar of all things electoral in MD and beyond. John Willis joins us on Zoom…

Again, the polls close at 8:00 tonight. Matt Tacka and Tom Hall will have live coverage of some of the early returns tonight starting at 8:00, and stay tuned to WYPR for complete coverage of Primary results on Wednesday and throughout the days ahead as we track the results and find out who the major party nominees will be.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

We begin today with a conversation with astronauts Jessica Watkins, and Kjell Lindgren, two members of the Space X Crew 4 that rocketed to the International Space Station on April 27 aboard the Space X Falcon/Dragon capsule.

Along with Robert Hines and Samantha Cristoforetti, an astronaut from the European Space Agency, they are now nearly three months into what is expected to be a five to six month expedition.

Dr. Watkins has made history as the first African American woman to go to the ISS. She has been chosen as one of the astronauts who will be on NASA’s next big project: Artemis, which will return humans to the moon.

Tom spoke with Dr. Watkins and Dr. Lindgren Monday morning, via Skype. Here’s that conversation.

You can also watch the entire video of the interview at these locations:

YouTube (nasa.gov)
https://youtu.be/d4S-9C0BDf4

AVAIL
https://images.nasa.gov/details-iss067m261991257_Expedition_67_InFlight_WYPR_220718

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

It’s the Midday Healthwatch, with Dr. Leana Wen.

The BA.5 variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is causing COVID cases to spike yet again. How long will this current uptick last? Today on Midday, what this new, highly transmissible variant tells us about the future of COVID.

Vaccines are readily available for children, but parents don’t appear to be eager to get their kids a jab.

And what about monkeypox? Is it a pandemic? Have we heeded the lessons of the Coronavirus well enough to handle this latest virus?

Dr. Leana Wen is one of America’s most trusted and knowledgeable public health experts. She is a former health commissioner of Baltimore and an emergency physician.  She teaches at the George Washington University School of Public Health.  She writes a column for the Washington Post.  She’s a medical analyst for CNN, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of Lifelines: A Doctor's Journey in the Fight for Public Health.

Dr. Wen joins us on Zoom…and we welcome your questions and comments as well.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.