In miniature, May 27

• “Poll: 61 percent of D.C.-area residents favor plan to add toll lanes to Beltway, I-270” and the same number prevails in Montgomery County although you’d never know it from the county’s political leadership [Katherine Shaver and Emily Guskin, Washington Post] “Maryland has pledged – and federal law requires – that the number of toll-free lanes will not be reduced.” [Bruce DePuyt, Maryland Matters]
• Sen. Bob Cassilly (R-Harford): “Kirwan will bankrupt the State of Maryland” [Erika Butler, Harford Aegis]
• “Property Rights Matter: Lessons from a Failing City” [Stephen J.K. Walters, Law and Liberty; my two cents on eminent domain, Pimlico, and the Preakness Stakes]
• Thanks WBAL host Yuripzy Morgan for mentioning me in discussing the (bad) idea of a law capping credit card interest rates [audio]
• Thread on Baltimore’s crisis of development and corruption [Brian Gaither on Twitter]
• In its first three months after implementation Maryland’s “red flag” law “prompted more than 300 protective orders across the state,” and an Anne Arundel man was shot dead by county officers while being served a gun confiscation order [Natalie Jones, Capital News Service/Maryland Matters]

Franchot’s bad idea: sanctions against Alabama

Comptroller Peter Franchot is normally one of the more level-headed Maryland electeds, but this latest idea of his, to adopt state sanctions against Alabama after its enactment of a sweeping ban on abortion, is quite bad. (Included in the sanctions would be restrictions on pension investments and travel by employees of the Comptroller’s office.) Boycotts by states of other states damage national unity, operate like internal trade barriers, invite retaliation, and these days nearly always fail. (Admittedly, they might make sense as a tactic for use in scenarios of impending civil war.)

For those of us who favor lifting trade sanctions against, say, Cuba, a regime that is 1) anti-American, 2) Communist, and 3) not even part of our own country, the wrongness of official sanctions and divestment against other U.S. states should be an easy call. See more at Overlawyered here, here, and here.

Culture War Tomorrow, Comity Tonight.

Maryland: sixth best state to live in, but absolute worst to retire?

The good news: Maryland has jumped to 6th from last year’s 13th in U.S. News’s best-states rankings, with abundant amenities now united with a reasonably prosperous economy.

The bad news: Maryland ranks absolute last as a place to retire in MoneyWise’s 50-state survey, abundant amenities or no, because of tough tax treatment of retirement income as well as high living and health care costs. According to that story, “both Bankrate and Kiplinger rank Maryland the No. 48 state, and WalletHub ranks it No. 41.”

That’s one reason to support Gov. Hogan’s proposals to begin lightening the tax treatment of retirement income, as well as to refrain from costly new legal mandates that work to drive up living and health costs yet further. Ours should be a multi-generational state.

On Jennifer Charlton’s WFMD “Success Happens”

Jennifer Charlton and I talked about the work of the upcoming Frederick County Charter Review Commission, along with other topics, on her WFMD show last weekend. You can listen here. More on the charter review process at the FNP.

I forgot to post it at the time, but you can also listen to a recent appearance I did on Jerry Rogers’s new WBAL show. We discussed among other topics the then-pending nomination of Judge Neomi Rao as a judge on the D.C. Circuit; she has since been confirmed.

Should Frederick take Gov. Thomas Johnson’s name off TJ high school?

Peter Samuel’s letter to the editor in the Frederick News-Post hits the right points: it’s not wrong to memorialize founders and framers whose historical notability lies in their works of positive benefit to the nation, and that goes for Frederick’s Gov. Thomas Johnson as well as for figures like Washington, Jefferson, and Madison. In a Twitter thread, I get into some of my disagreements with the original front-page FNP piece by reporter Wyatt Massey.