General Assembly - Employment and Leave Protection for Members
HB0037 would expand employment protections for members of the Maryland General Assembly who miss work to carry out legislative duties. The bill prohibits an employer from firing, threatening, coercing, or otherwise penalizing an employee because the employee loses work time to perform responsibilities as a legislator. It also bars employers from requiring a legislator-employee to use annual, sick, or vacation leave for legislative duties, and it limits scheduling practices by preventing employers from assigning certain late-night or early-morning shifts after a legislator has spent at least four hours on legislative responsibilities, including travel time.
The bill further provides that these protections apply whether or not the General Assembly is in session, and it clarifies that “responsibilities as a member of the General Assembly” does not include campaigning for office. For legislators or legislative employees who also work for the State or a political subdivision, the bill guarantees an automatic leave of absence during session and preserves employment incidents such as tenure, seniority, leave accrual, promotional rights, and salary increments, though not the right to receive wages for the time away. A violation by an employer would be subject to a civil fine of up to $1,000, and the act would take effect October 1, 2026.
HB0037 would amend Section 2-105 of the State Government Article to create explicit job-protection and leave rules for General Assembly members who are also employees in the private sector or in public employment. It would add new restrictions on employer retaliation and scheduling, and it would codify automatic leave protections for legislators employed by the State or local governments, while preserving most employment benefits other than pay. The bill would therefore affect employers, legislative employees, and public employers by limiting how legislative service can be treated in workplace attendance and discipline decisions.
The available record shows the bill was introduced and referred to the House Government, Labor, and Elections Committee, with a hearing scheduled, but there are no recorded votes or committee transcripts in the provided materials. As a result, there is no documented floor or committee sentiment to assess directly. Based on the bill text alone, the measure appears aimed at protecting civic service and legislative participation, suggesting a generally supportive policy rationale, but the official discussion record provided here does not show whether that support was shared by committee members or stakeholders.
The main potential point of contention is the extent to which the bill limits employer control over scheduling and leave for employees who serve in the General Assembly. Employers may object to being prohibited from requiring use of annual, sick, or vacation leave, from scheduling certain shifts after legislative duties, and from taking adverse action tied to missed work time. Another possible issue is the scope of the protections for state and local government employees who are legislators, since the bill preserves employment status and advancement rights while excluding salary or wages during leave. No specific opposition or support is documented in the provided transcripts, so these concerns are inferred from the bill’s operative provisions rather than from recorded debate.