Republicans urge Hogan to veto minimum wage bill

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ANNAPOLIS — Lawmakers from Gov. Larry Hogan’s party are calling on him to veto a bill that will increase the state’s minimum wage for all businesses to $15 per hour by 2026.

The House Republican Caucus made its appeal Monday as the clock ticks down to a deadline for Hogan to make a decision on whether to veto the legislation. The minimum wage bill is one of roughly a dozen passed by the General Assembly and sent to Hogan last week.

In a letter to Hogan, Dels. Nicholaus Kipke and Kathy Szeliga, Republican leaders from Anne Arundel County and Baltimore and Harford counties, respectively, called on Hogan to veto an increase of the minimum wage, saying it would move the state’s economy backwards.

“Every year, the General Assembly throws yet another burden on businesses,” wrote Kipke and Szeliga. “We have worked under a belief that the majority party in the General Assembly simply does not understand the impact these changes have to businesses, but it has become increasingly obvious that it is not that they do not understand, but rather that many of our colleagues simply seem not to care about the tremendously negative impact of their actions. That is terribly unfortunate.”

The bill increases the minimum wage to $11 per hour for all employees in January with additional increases for businesses with 15 or more employees phasing in annually until it reaches $15 per hour in 2025.

Businesses with less than 15 employees will see annual increases of about 60 cents, reaching $14.50 in 2024 and $15 in July 2026.

Among the measures sent to Hogan are bills that would strip power from the Office of the Comptroller and eliminate Hogan’s executive order requiring school systems to start classes in public schools after Labor Day.

Hogan has spoken against the bills when asked by reporters but has declined to say if he would veto the measures.

“We’ll take a look at those bills next week,” Hogan told reporters during an appearance at Government House late last week.

Any bill vetoed by Hogan by the end of the day Wednesday would be subject to an override vote before the session ends on April 8. The governor is not required to make similar decisions on bills sent to him with less than 10 days in the session.

The General Assembly is believed to have the vote to override any vetoes on bills sent up early to Hogan.

Democrats may look to schedule a number of those overrides quickly before losing Sen. Will Smith, D-Montgomery. Smith, a naval intelligence officer, is scheduled to be deployed to Afghanistan. He is expected to leave the Senate by the end of the week.

Another bill of importance to at least one Democrat is a measure that would remove the field enforcement division of the Office of the Comptroller. Under a bill passed by the General Assembly, the enforcement arm of the state’s tax collector would be shifted to a new agency.

The bill is seen by many, including Comptroller Peter Franchot and the governor, as a swipe at Franchot, who has been very vocal in his advocacy for eliminating what he sees as antiquated laws that penalize the craft beer industry in Maryland.

Ironically, some of the measures championed by Franchot on behalf of the industry are on track to pass despite lawmakers refusing to introduce the comptroller’s legislation.

Hogan, who openly brags about his bipartisan relationship with Franchot, has been cagey about whether or not he would veto that bill, which he says is “purely political.”

“I think it’s all politics behind the whole thing,” Hogan told reporters. “The legislature has introduced more than 100 bills to take power away from me. Now they are trying to take power away from the comptroller, even though he’s in the same party. They don’t like the fact that he’s working in a bipartisan way with us. It’s pure politics. There’s no other reason for it.”