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Maryland Public Service Commission
The Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC) is an independent administrative agency within the state government which regulates public utilities and certain taxi cab and other passenger services in Maryland. Similar to other state public utilities commissions, the Maryland PSC regulates and sets tariff rates for natural gas, electricity distribution, local telephone, water, and sewage disposal companies. The PSC also sets the tariff rates for pilot services for vessels and privately owned toll bridges, approves the construction of electric generating plants and overhead transmission lines with a voltage above 69 kV, and licenses retail natural gas and electricity suppliers. The PSC offices are located in Baltimore in the William Donald Schaefer Building. Members of the Public Service Commission The five PSC commissioners serve staggered five-year terms, are appointed by the Governor, and are confirmed by the Maryland General Assembly. By statute the commissioners must be repre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Government Of Maryland
The government of Maryland is conducted according to the Maryland Constitution. The United States is a federation; consequently, the government of Maryland, like the other 49 state governments, has exclusive authority over matters that lie entirely within the state's borders, except as limited by the Constitution of the United States. Administrative influence in Maryland is divided among three branches of government: executive, legislative, and judicial. Unlike most other states, significant autonomy is granted to many of Maryland's counties. Most of the business of government is done in Annapolis, the state capital however some cabinet level and state officials have their offices in Baltimore. Virtually all state and county elections are held in even-numbered years not divisible by four, in which the President of the United States is ''not'' elected—this, as in other states, is intended to divide state and federal politics. Executive branch The constitution establishes fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maryland General Assembly
The Maryland General Assembly is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Maryland that convenes within the State House in Annapolis. It is a bicameral body: the upper chamber, the Maryland Senate, has 47 representatives and the lower chamber, the Maryland House of Delegates, has 141 representatives. Members of both houses serve four-year terms. Each house elects its own officers, judges the qualifications and election of its own members, establishes rules for the conduct of its business, and may punish or expel its own members. The General Assembly meets each year for 90 days to act on more than 2,300 bills including the state's annual budget, which it must pass before adjourning ''sine die''. The General Assembly's 441st session convened on January 9, 2020. History The forerunner of the Maryland General Assembly was the colonial institution, an Assembly of Free Marylanders (and also Council of Maryland). Maryland's foundational charter created a state ruled by the '' Palat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
African-American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of enslaved Africans who are from the United States. While some Black immigrants or their children may also come to identify as African-American, the majority of first generation immigrants do not, preferring to identify with their nation of origin. African Americans constitute the second largest racial group in the U.S. after White Americans, as well as the third largest ethnic group after Hispanic and Latino Americans. Most African Americans are descendants of enslaved people within the boundaries of the present United States. On average, African Americans are of West/Central African with some European descent; some also have Native American and other ancestry. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, African immigrants generally do not sel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Separate But Equal
Separate but equal was a legal doctrine in United States constitutional law, according to which racial segregation did not necessarily violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which nominally guaranteed "equal protection" under the law to all people. Under the doctrine, as long as the facilities provided to each " race" were equal, state and local governments could require that services, facilities, public accommodations, housing, medical care, education, employment, and transportation be segregated by "race", which was already the case throughout the states of the former Confederacy. The phrase was derived from a Louisiana law of 1890, although the law actually used the phrase "equal but separate". The doctrine was confirmed in the '' Plessy v. Ferguson'' Supreme Court decision of 1896, which allowed state-sponsored segregation. Though segregation laws existed before that case, the decision emboldened segregation states during the Jim Crow era, wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baltimore, Chesapeake And Atlantic Railway
The Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic railroad, nicknamed Black Cinders & Ashes, ran from Claiborne, Maryland (with steamship connections to Baltimore), to Ocean City, Maryland. It operated of center-line track and of sidings.Interstate Commerce Commission reports. decisions of the Interstate Commerce Commission of the United States / reported by the Commission. United States. Washington : U.S. G.P.O. : 1929–1965Accessed at HaithTrust Chartered in 1886, the railroad started construction in 1889 and cost $2.356 million ($=). The railroad also played a key role in the fight against racial segregation and the path to civil rights. Maryland civil rights advocates such as attorney William Ashbie Hawkins represented several plaintiffs before the Maryland Public Service Commission, protesting the segregated conditions maintained by the railroad in both the boats and trains under Maryland's Jim Crow laws in the 1910-1920s. Though Hawkins' various complaints were dismissed, the Pu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jim Crow Laws
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the South had adopted laws, beginning in the late 19th century, banning discrimination in public accommodations and voting. Southern laws were enacted in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by white Southern Democrat-dominated state legislatures to disenfranchise and remove political and economic gains made by African Americans during the Reconstruction era. Jim Crow laws were enforced until 1965. In practice, Jim Crow laws mandated racial segregation in all public facilities in the states of the former Confederate States of America and in some others, beginning in the 1870s. Jim Crow laws were upheld in 1896 in the case of '' Plessy vs. Ferguson'', in which the Supreme Court laid out its "separate but equal" legal doctrine concerning facil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Ashbie Hawkins
William Ashbie Hawkins (1862–1941) was one of Baltimore's first African American lawyers. He was born in Lynchburg, Virginia on August 2, 1862 to Reverend Robert and Susan Cobb Hawkins. One of Hawkins grandsons, Cromwell Ashbie Hawkins West, fabricated a Native American identity for himself and went by the name "Red Thunder Cloud". Early life and works On March 14, 1885, he married Ada M. McMechen (b. 1867), also Virginia-born, in Baltimore with the Rev. Benjamin Brown officiating. They had two daughters, Aldina (Haynes; 1885-1940) and Roberta (West; b. 1891).Archives of Maryland,(Biographical Series), W. Ashbie Hawkins (1861-1941), MSA SC 3520-12415 He graduated in 1885 from Centenary Biblical Institute (later to become Morgan College). He attended the University of Maryland School of Law, and was expelled in 1891 when the school resegregated. He completed his law degree at Howard University in 1892. After seven years as a public school teacher (1885-1892), Hawkins was admi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Austin Lane Crothers
Austin Lane Crothers (May 17, 1860 – May 25, 1912), was an American politician and a member of the United States Democratic Party, was the 46th Governor of Maryland in the United States from 1908 to 1912. Early life and career Crothers was born near Conowingo in Cecil County, Maryland, the eighth son of Alpheus and Margaret Crothers. He was raised on his father's farm, spending much of his life there. Educated at West Nottingham Academy, he spent several years in the work force, first as a store clerk, then as a public school teacher. He was inspired to become a lawyer, and graduated from the University of Maryland Law School in 1890. He practiced law in Elkton until becoming the State's Attorney for Cecil County, a post he held from 1891 to 1895. In 1897, Austin Crothers was elected to the Maryland State Senate as a Democrat, replacing his brother Charles C. Crothers. During the session of 1900, he became his party's leader in the Senate after becoming chairman of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Party Platform
A political party platform (US English), party program, or party manifesto (preferential term in British & often Commonwealth English) is a formal set of principle goals which are supported by a political party or individual candidate, in order to appeal to the general public, for the ultimate purpose of garnering the general public's support and votes about complicated topics or issues. A component of a political platform is often called a plank – the opinions and viewpoints about an individual topic, as held by a party, person, or organization. The word ''plank'' depicts a component of an overall political platform, as a metaphorical reference to a basic stage made of boards or planks of wood. The metaphor can return to its literal origin when public speaking or debates are actually held upon a physical platform. In the United Kingdom and certain other countries, the party platform is referred to as the party's "manifesto" or political programme. Across the Western w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States. Founded in 1828, it was predominantly built by Martin Van Buren, who assembled a wide cadre of politicians in every state behind war hero Andrew Jackson, making it the world's oldest active political party.M. Philip Lucas, "Martin Van Buren as Party Leader and at Andrew Jackson's Right Hand." in ''A Companion to the Antebellum Presidents 1837–1861'' (2014): 107–129."The Democratic Party, founded in 1828, is the world's oldest political party" states Its main political rival has been the Republican Party since the 1850s. The party is a big tent, and though it is often described as liberal, it is less ideologically uniform than the Republican Party (with major individuals within it frequently holding widely different political views) due to the broader list of unique voting blocs that compose it. The historical predecessor of the Democratic Party is considered to be th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Judicial Review
Judicial review is a process under which executive, legislative and administrative actions are subject to review by the judiciary. A court with authority for judicial review may invalidate laws, acts and governmental actions that are incompatible with a higher authority: an executive decision may be invalidated for being unlawful or a statute may be invalidated for violating the terms of a constitution. Judicial review is one of the checks and balances in the separation of powers: the power of the judiciary to supervise the legislative and executive branches when the latter exceed their authority. The doctrine varies between jurisdictions, so the procedure and scope of judicial review may differ between and within countries. General principles Judicial review can be understood in the context of two distinct—but parallel—legal systems, civil law and common law, and also by two distinct theories of democracy regarding the manner in which government should be organized ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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