Moore administration, others fear drastic impact to MD government under Trump

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A second Donald Trump presidency could present major disruptions for Gov. Wes Moore‘s policy agenda, and members of the governor’s Cabinet fear the former president’s plans would significantly disrupt the deep-blue state’s economy and government services.

If Trump reshapes federal spending, the tens of billions of dollars that Maryland receives for its budget, and funding and approvals for major transportation projects, fighting climate change, increasing renewable energy production and more, could be on the hook, the governor’s Chief of Staff Fagan Harris said.

How Trump’s mass deportation plans could affect Maryland’s foreign-born residents is also top of mind.

“It’s hard to overstate how big of a change this would be,” Harris said in a recent virtual interview.

Harris said that another Trump presidency would be “tremendously disruptive” to communities across Maryland and would be a dramatic departure from a period of harmony between the Moore and Biden administrations.

Since at least the start of the year, Moore and members of his Cabinet have planned for the potential of a Trump presidency, honing in on how each state agency would be impacted. Officials have prepared a roughly 50-page scenario plan for the governor, Harris said.

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A new FBI headquarters in Prince George’s County and plans for an east-west Red Line light rail project in Baltimore are among the high-profile projects that officials fear would be in jeopardy. Trump has previously made clear his desire for the FBI t0 be based in Washington, D.C., and Republicans have generally opposed paying for the Red Line.

Changes wouldn’t unfold overnight. Trump’s policies would have their own timelines and there would be opportunities for intervention from courts and state legislatures. Who has control of Congress would be hugely consequential.

“If there’s unified (Republican) government, we’re going to see lots of legislation, executive orders (and) judicial rulings that the majority of Marylanders are not going to like,” said Mark Graber, a University of Maryland law professor and a leading scholar on constitutional law and politics.

While Trump may act quickly to reshape federal immigration and climate change policies, structural changes to the federal budget and workforce could take years, and court challenges would be likely.

But, Graber said, “when people want to do things quickly, they can,” even in government.

With support from Congress, Graber said, Trump could rapidly enact federal laws narrowing abortion rights and nullify state-level protections, expand federal punishments for certain crimes and limit state capacity to regulate the environment.

“It’s entirely possible that a Trump administration supported by Congress will — through new federal laws and Supreme Court decisions — expand the reach of federal law,” Graber said.

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Maryland Cabinet secretaries and their teams have revisited the rules and strings attached to the federal funding they receive to determine how their programs might change, how rules may be rewritten, how compliance standards could shift and whether programs may be eliminated.

“There’s a deep, exhaustive analysis that we have to do as the executive (branch) around that funding that has a material impact in terms of how we run the government,” Harris said. “And that’s before you get to (Trump’s) ambitious policy agenda and some of the big policies he wants to see shift.”

Maryland is heavily reliant on its income tax base, and almost 20% of the state’s workforce is made up of federal, state, county and municipal government employees. Nearly 160,000 Marylanders were federal workers as of 2023, according to the State Archives.

If Trump were to purge the federal workforce, Maryland’s economy could take a major hit.

The former president’s plan to “embark on the most ambitious deportation exercises in American history” would impact hundreds of thousands of Marylanders, Harris said. This includes those who are living in the state undocumented or who are authorized to live here but who aren’t naturalized citizens.

Immigration restrictions would harm industries that rely on foreign-born Marylanders, including vital agricultural production and crab picking, among others, Harris said.

Population and labor force participation increases among foreign-born residents played a major role in boosting the state’s economy during a yearslong period of sluggish overall growth. Increases in international migration were expected to continue growing the state’s population, labor force, consumer network and tax base, according to the Office of the Comptroller.

Roughly 17% of Maryland’s population was born in another country as of 2023, according to data from the state Department of Planning.

A Trump decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement and roll back progress toward minimizing greenhouse gas emissions and otherwise delaying the disastrous effects of a rapidly warming planet would be a blow to Maryland’s economy and its conservation efforts, particularly around the Chesapeake Bay and the maritime and agricultural industries that it supports, Harris said.

A Trump administration could also hamper Maryland’s push to advance offshore wind and expand energy production, he said.

Harris said that the election outcome won’t change the Moore administration’s priorities, though progress toward the governor’s stated goals would certainly come much easier under a President Kamala Harris.

How state officials react to Trump policies would certainly influence the degree to which they knock the Moore administration off course.

“How we navigate will matter a lot,” Harris said.