“Never allow a good crisis go to waste. It’s an opportunity to do the things you once thought were impossible.”

Rahm Emanuel said that when he was President Obama’s chief of staff.

That sound advice came to mind twice today.

This morning, I spoke to advocates for a right to legal counsel.

We passed a law providing access to a lawyer for tenants in housing court two years ago.

I had been working on this issue for over a decade.

The pandemic got the bill passed.

The surge in evictions prompted Speaker Adrienne Jones to put this issue on her agenda.

Maryland’s nursing shortage and the need to modernize our response to public health challenges were considered this afternoon by the Health and Government Operations Committee.

The nursing shortage will prompt us to consider a host of incentives and benefits so that patients will receive quality health care.

Adopt those incentives and payments here, and you create a precedent to do it elsewhere.

The Covid pandemic is the basis for the commission,

“It’s a moment of opportunity,” stated Dr. Josh Sharfstein, vice dean of the Johns Hopkins.Bloomberg School of Public Health.

It sounded familiar.