🏛️ The Maryland Wire
Daily Intelligence & Statehouse Analysis
Wednesday, October 21, 2026
🆓 ANNAPOLIS WIRE NOTES & MEDIA ROUNDUP
Quick reads, lateral moves, and verified news from around the Free State.
$500M Defense R&D Contract in Laurel: The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel was awarded a $499.8 million sole-source, IDIQ contract by DARPA for advanced technical research, systems development, and engineering services running through October 2031.
Public Service Commission Telecommunications Filing: 812 Fiber and Infrastructure LLC officially submitted a formal application (ML# 335432) to the PSC seeking operating authority to provide facility-based local exchange telecommunications services statewide.
Community Solar Application Expansion: Rutabaga Solar, LLC filed an application (ML# 335438) with the PSC to enter the state’s Community Solar Energy Generating System (CSEGS) Pilot Program, continuing steady clean-energy filings across rural counties.
Stadium Authority Ad Hoc Meeting: The Maryland Stadium Authority (MSA) reminds registered vendors that its Ad Hoc Board of Directors meeting is set for Wednesday, October 28 at Camden Yards ahead of upcoming facility maintenance contract reviews on eMMA.
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FERC punted. Now the fight is in Annapolis (via The Maryland Wire)
My October 20 piece: on the evening of Friday, October 9, while nobody in Annapolis was watching, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission voted 5-0 to hand the hardest question in American energy policy to the states. FERC threw out almost everything PJM proposed for managing the data-center load flooding its grid — the interim curtailment plan, the bring-your-own-capacity option, the demand-curve carve-out — keeping only the registry of large loads, 50 megawatts and up, effective October 12. The reasoning is the part that matters here: FERC said the rejected pieces put obligations directly on large loads that are, for the most part, retail customers — state turf, not theirs — and “strongly encourage[d] states to continue their important work.” Read that again: FERC just told the states to write the law that decides who gets shut off first when the grid is stressed. In Maryland, that means the General Assembly, and the 2027 session — the fight over who pays for the grid just became its main event, and the industry’s side is already on the field.
Source: The Maryland Wire
Rifkin Weiner Livingston launches Administrative Law Group, adds two lawyers
Alan Rifkin’s shop made it official on October 19: RWL has formed a formal Administrative Law Group, chaired by Michael V. Johansen, the firm’s administrative partner, with a roster of Alan M. Rifkin, Arnold M. Weiner, Scott A. Livingston, M. Celeste Bruce, Jamie Eisenberg Katz and Stuart A. Cherry. The group handles compliance matters, defense in government investigations, contested matters before boards and commissions, drafting regulations, procurement and government contracting processes, and judicial review of state agency decisions. And it comes with two new lawyers. Sara N. Sellers — a former Assistant Attorney General assigned to the Office of the Comptroller, where she handled procurements, government contracting, fraud and tax matters, and before that a Procurement Fraud Attorney in the U.S. Navy and a Contract Specialist in the Marine Corps (also an Officer Candidate in the Army/Maryland National Guard and a General Attorney with the Air Force) — lands in RWL’s Towson office. Emily T. Gordon, a recent Wake Forest University School of Law graduate (IP, transactions and administrative law coursework; Wake Forest Law IP Clinic; Symposium Editor of the Wake Forest Law Review), joins the Bethesda office and will assist the Administrative Law, Business and Commercial Transactions, and Complex Civil and Commercial Litigation groups. A strong get for one of the state’s biggest lobbying shops — Sellers is a genuine procurement hire landing at a firm whose government-relations bench already sits at the center of Maryland procurement fights.
Source: RWL: Administrative Law Group announcement; RWL: new hires announcement
Audit: AG’s office couldn’t track millions in outside legal contracts
A 26-page Office of Legislative Audits report, made public October 20, found Attorney General Anthony G. Brown’s office lacked adequate procedures and controls for tracking and monitoring outside legal counsel hired by state agencies between June 2022 and May 2026 — the audit counted 120 contracts with 97 law firms totaling nearly $63 million, with five agencies accounting for nearly $40 million, and warned the real total may be higher because some payments never entered the state accounting system. Brown agreed with the findings in a letter to auditors and said the office is building a central repository of outside-counsel contracts, an effort begun about three years ago that it expects to finish by the end of 2027. Whether lawmakers take up outside-counsel oversight in the 2027 session is the watch item.
Source: Maryland Matters
Moore and Scott headline the Bloomberg American Health Summit
At the ninth annual Bloomberg American Health Summit in Baltimore this morning, Gov. Wes Moore and Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott talked about how city and state policy can combat emerging public-health threats from gun violence and AI to budget cuts — including $25 million in new funding to offset rising numbers of uninsured Marylanders and a new Vax Act. Guns, drugs, AI and budget cuts are joining the traditional maladies on the agenda.
Source: Maryland Matters
Harford charter fight: Cassilly vs. Penman over Bill 26-018
Harford County Executive Bob Cassilly is opposing the county council’s vote to weaken the county charter in Bill 26-018, which passed Tuesday. The bill, sponsored solely by Councilman Aaron Penman — who is also an employee of the Harford County Sheriff’s Office, a dual-employment status Cassilly has challenged in court and which is the subject of an ongoing lawsuit — addresses the charter’s language on dual public employment for council members. Cassilly says the council singled out county government employees while “clearing a path for organized labor and other special interests to exercise additional control over the legislative branch.” (Reported from the county executive’s release.)
Source: EIN Presswire
Baltimore County Council votes itself a raise
The Baltimore County Council voted Monday to lift council pay from $69,000 to $119,750 (chair: $77,000 to $129,750), the Banner’s Rona Kobell reports — a 73% increase as the body moves toward full-time compensation. Council Chair Mike Ertel’s chamber also raised the county executive’s salary 25%, to $240,000 from $192,000, postponed a vote on bumping the county administrative officer to $310,721, approved a $25 million deal to keep the Ravens at their Owings Mills practice facility, approved buying the St. Pius X property in Rodgers Forge as recreation space, and — at the administration’s request to “modernize” procurement — lifted the cap on contracts requiring council approval from $25,000 to $150,000 for business contracts and leases, and to $100,000 for real estate sales. Council candidates reported hearing about the pension bump on the campaign trail.
Source: Baltimore Banner
Suspicious mailings force evacuations at Maryland congressional offices
The district offices of Democratic Reps. Sarah Elfreth and Johnny Olszewski were evacuated Friday after receiving suspicious mail containing an unknown substance — Olszewski’s staff isolated the package and notified law enforcement, spokesperson Jaime Lennon said; no one was reported injured. Letters were also delivered to the offices of Reps. Kweisi Mfume, Steny Hoyer and Jamie Raskin, while envelopes addressed to Sens. Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks — and to the Maryland State Board of Elections, per elections administrator Jared DeMarinis — were intercepted. “In this political climate, I will not be intimidated, silenced, or frightened from the call to serve,” Mfume said, after asking the postmaster general and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service for answers. The FBI and the Postal Inspection Service are investigating at least 100 letters sent to addresses in 19 states.
Source: Focal News
Baltimore sues landlord and software vendors over ‘junk fees’
Baltimore’s city solicitor is suing Pennrose Management Co. and two technology vendors, RentCafe and Yardi Systems, alleging tenants at Pennrose’s nine low-income Baltimore developments — many older adults, people with disabilities and others on low or fixed incomes — were charged hidden “service” fees to pay rent electronically, undisclosed up front or in leases, with credit and debit payers facing $300 to $420 a year in fees. The complaint, filed this week in Baltimore Circuit Court by the D.C. law firm Relman Colfax, says tenants got no additional services for the fees but had to “pay to pay” or risk eviction — a violation of Maryland’s consumer protection law, the suit argues. The companies did not immediately respond.
Source: Baltimore Banner
Question 3 fight gets a deceptive new TV ad
A TV ad from the PAC Truth for Maryland urges Marylanders to “vote yes for Wes” while voting against the redistricting ballot question — and Wes Moore’s campaign is not thrilled, the Banner’s Pamela Wood reports. “Ripping off Governor Moore’s identity and branding through Trump-style misinformation and disinformation won’t work in Maryland,” campaign spokesperson Carter Elliott IV said; Moore is voting yes on Question 3. Doug Mayer, spokesperson for the bipartisan and less well-funded Protect Maryland Votes, called the ad “obviously brilliant,” arguing Question 3 would gerrymander Republican and independent voters out of congressional representation; Mayer says his group is not affiliated with Truth for Maryland, though both are led by Hogan-alum operatives. Thirteen days out, the ballot-measure air war is on.
Source: Baltimore Banner
FOX45: Maryland overpaid child-care providers $66.5M, then dropped recoupment
FOX45’s Project Baltimore reports that internal Maryland State Department of Education audits identified $66.5 million in overpayments to child-care providers between 2023 and 2025 — duplicate payments, providers paid without submitting invoices, payments for children no longer enrolled — and that MSDE then decided not to move forward with broad recoupments of past payments, with millions already repaid slated to be returned to providers. (Reported from FOX45’s Project Baltimore investigation; agency response as reported there.)
Source: FOX45
WIRED MARYLAND — WOMEN'S Wednesday, October 21, 2026
Asma Mirza, Chief Performance Officer, State of Maryland
Somebody in Annapolis has the job of making the whole machine run better, and it is Asma Mirza. As Maryland's Chief Performance Officer, Mirza runs the Governor's Office of Performance Improvement, working with Governor Wes Moore's cabinet secretaries to set measurable goals for every agency and hold them to the numbers — the working heart of the first Maryland State Plan in nearly a decade.
Moore hired her out of the White House. As Deputy for Implementation Management on the White House Infrastructure Implementation Team and a Special Assistant to the President, Mirza helped oversee implementation of the $1.2 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Law — building, among other things, the data systems that let Americans see what the law was doing in their own communities. Before that came work on the COVID-19 response, and a rarer line on any résumé: she helped ensure the peaceful transfer of presidential power in both 2016 and 2020.
A lifelong resident of the D.C.–Maryland–Virginia region, she is a Georgetown University graduate with an MBA from the University of Maryland. This year she is the governor's point person on one of the least glamorous and most important jobs in state government: carrying out Moore's February directive ordering every cabinet secretary to review and clear the audit findings their agencies keep repeating. Performance, measured in public, by a woman who has made a career of it.
Sources:
Governor's Office announcement of her appointment (governor.maryland.gov); SB 859 testimony, Senate Budget & Taxation Committee, March 3, 2026 (mgaleg.maryland.gov); American Kahani and American Bazaar profiles (2023).