There were repeated references to “my friend” from here or “the gentle lady” from there, but the niceties were overpowered by the shouting and the finger-pointing Wednesday during a second day of debate on the fiscal 2026 budget.

The House ultimately approved the $67 billion budget for next year, after three hours of debate — which was on top of seven hours of testy debate Tuesday, when House Democrats beat back a series of Republican amendments.

While Wednesday’s debate was shorter, it was no less heated, with the highlight — or lowlight, perhaps — coming in a shouting match between two Democrats that eventually pulled in the Speaker.

“I know this is not popular, as a person in the majority party … I stand here because I feel like I don’t have a place in this place anymore — I don’t. And it’s for some of these reasons in this very budget,” said Del. Sheree Sample-Hughes (D-Dorchester and Wicomico).

“It doesn’t look like what the Eastern Shore is in need of,” she said in explaining her “no” vote on the budget, which includes more than $2 billion in cuts and $1 billion in tax increases.

When House Speaker Adrienne Jones (D-Baltimore County) tried to tell her the allotted two minutes of floor time was up, Sample-Hughes steamrolled over the Speaker.

“And you know what, I’m not even going to talk about the budget stuff anymore, and yes I know that’s what the purpose is – I get that,” Sample-Hughes said. “This institution is not for everybody … ”

When Del. Stephanie Smith (D-Baltimore City), the House Parliamentarian, called a point of order to remind the delegate that her time was up, Sample-Hughes pushed right on through, leading Smith to shout over her. That didn’t stop Sample-Hughes, who was trying to press how the budget would affect her constituents.

“Parliamentarian, I hear you, but enough is enough,” Sample-Hughes said. “When I have an 80-year-old woman calling me saying she’s working with candles to light her house–”

As Jones brought the gavel down, Smith issued another warning. “The two minutes for the gentle lady,” she said, pausing for emphasis, “are over.”

“I can count,” Sample-Hughes shot back.

“Yes, but you must sit down,” Smith said. “You no longer have the floor.”

“I understand, the one last thing I will say,” Sample-Hughes continued, “and I was not trying to be controversial –”

“People are allotted two minutes to explain their – I can talk louder; do you want to do that?” Smith shouted, her frustration growing. “Sit down.”

“Let’s keep calm,” Jones jumped in. “You had your two minutes.”

Sample-Hughes yielded but not before saying, “Two minutes is up, but the passion for the people continues” — a line that drew a smattering of applause from House Republicans.

It was not the first flare-up of the day: Several delegates engaged in pointed remarks over the “core values” of Republicans and Democrats as they argued over what should be cut or preserved as the state works to close the $3 billion deficit for fiscal 2026.

“I’m disappointed that the minority party wants our citizens to go it alone based on their proposals on this budget. They want every man to fight for themselves,” said Del. Malcom P. Ruff (D-Baltimore City), citing a series of failed amendments Republicans proposed Tuesday.

Ruff said that despite $2.5 billion in spending cuts, he is proud that the proposed budget still funds programs in education and raises salaries for state workers.

“This is what our budget and our morals and our values are about — stand 10 toes down,” he said, raising his voice to a level that Del. Jason Buckel (D-Allegany) later described as yelling.

“I appreciate my friend from Baltimore City, but I don’t appreciate being yelled at,” Buckel said. “If I did it too, you wouldn’t like it as much.”

But as Buckel’s comments went on, the volume of his comments also rose at times.

“We’re the only state in our damn region that has a multibillion-dollar budget deficit and needs to raise billions of dollars in taxes to do the same stuff that they do in Richmond,” he said raising his voice at the end.

“I don’t know if we know how things work here in Maryland,” he said. “They seem to know how they work in Virginia. They seem to know how they work in Pennsylvania, and Delaware and West Virginia. But we can’t seem to get it done here in Maryland.”

Despite the shouting and two hours of debate, the House voted 100-39 to approve House Bill 350, the main part of the budget , with Sample-Hughes joining Republicans to vote no.

About an hour later, the House voted 93-46 to approve the second prong of the budget in House Bill 352. In addition to Sample-Hughes, Democratic Dels. Brian Crosby of St. Mary’s County and Heather Bagnall of Anne Arundel County joined Republicans opposing the bill.

Maryland Matters is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maryland Matters maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Steve Crane for questions: editor@marylandmatters.org.

Community leaders called on Baltimore County school officials Tuesday to ensure that undocumented students are protected, days after reports that an Overlea High School teacher reached out to immigration officials and offered to name names.

That incident has rippled the immigrant community, leaving students and family members more scared than ever over their safety in school, advocates said during the board meeting and at a news conference earlier in the day.

“This isn’t just about one teacher,” said Lucas Cunha, an Essex business owner who testified to the board. “He offered to hand over the names students to ICE – young people he was entrusted to protect.”

Cunha, who was once undocumented, called the alleged actions of the Baltimore County teacher a “betrayal” that “didn’t just endanger immigrants, it shattered the trust of every student.”

Advocates were referring to a series of posts last week that appeared to come from a since-deleted account on X, called @RennerTraining, that tags the account of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and offers to share the names of undocumented students.

“If you want the names to investigate families to find illegals, let me know in dm [direct message]. I’ll give names and school. All in Md,” according to screenshots of the posts.

County school officials did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday. The Teachers Association of Baltimore County said in a Facebook post Tuesday that it was “aware of alleged actions by an educator at Overlea High School last week,” without further elaboration on the incident.

“It’s also important to note that all students have privacy rights based on federal FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) protections,” the Facebook statement said. “And while immigration issues may seem complicated, some things are simple: children do not decide where and how their parents choose to move.”

But Crisaly De Los Santos, Central Maryland and Baltimore director for CASA, said during a virtual event Tuesday afternoon that the incident has shattered the sense of security for families in the region.

“Families should feel confident that when their children are in schools, they’re safe and they’re protected and supported by teachers and administrators who they trust to care for their children,” she said. “But in light of recent events, we have seen how this basic expectation has not been met.”

She said that the county school board needs to “adopt a clear and comprehensive policy to ensure that ICE is going to be blocked from accessing school resources and personal information.”

“We need a policy that guarantees that students’ safety and their future is not going to be jeopardized by federal immigration enforcement,” she said. “The current policy is just not enough, and it does not provide the clarity some families need to feel safe in our schools.”

Several members of Baltimore County’s immigrant community said during the virtual event that the social media posts heightened anxiety many were already feeling under President Donald Trump (R). They did not provide their full names for privacy reasons.

A 12th grader named Helen shared that her goals are simple: She wants to become fluent in English and attend college. But she is now constantly worried that her “personal information will be shared with ICE,” which makes focusing on schoolwork difficult.

“Every student deserves to feel safe at school, no matter where they come from,” Helen said.

Another Baltimore County student, who used the pseudonym Rosa, said the United States is the country she “calls home,” but “hearing a county teacher threatened to call ICE made me feel that I did not belong in this country.”

Gricelda, a parent of three Baltimore County public school students, said she worries about sending her children to school each day.

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“I have to think every day about the possibilities of family separation — and what this could lead to for many families … Just seeing that a Baltimore County Public School teacher has threatened to share students’ information with ICE, it really worries me,” she said through De Los Santos, who translated. “This is something that does not just affect me, but many other families, and I am constantly worried, thinking about if sending my kids to school is the safe thing to do.”

During open comments at the virtual board meeting, Cunha and others said a sense of security is important for immigrant safety so students can learn.

“Every single opportunity I got … was because of the trust that I built with my teachers over 20 years ago,” Cunha said. “That trust is the foundation of every student’s success. That very trust is what’s at stake here.”

Peter Baum, who was previously taught English as a second language in Baltimore County, said he’s been in “education for over eight years … and in my time I have never heard of such a massively egregious violation of student safety.”

While she did not speak on the case itself, Superintendent Myriam Rogers said during the virtual board meeting that “teachers, all staff, are expected to create safe learning environment for our schools, for our students.”

She also noted that federal and state “protects student privacy and prohibits the release of student information.”

“When staff members violate those expectations and break policy, there are consequences. We absolutely do follow due process. There is an investigation, and based on the results of those investigations, next steps are determined,” she said.

Maryland Matters is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maryland Matters maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Steve Crane for questions: editor@marylandmatters.org.

Maryland has recorded its first case of bird flu in more than a year, after the virus was confirmed at a Caroline County farm through “routine sampling of a broiler operation,” according to a statement Friday from the Maryland Department of Agriculture.

It comes after the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A(H5N1) virus was detected recently on two farms in Kent County, Delaware, the department said.

“This marks the first case of H5N1 at a Maryland commercial poultry operation since 2023 and the third commercial operation in the Delmarva region in the last 30 days when two Kent County, DE returned positive results,” the agency said Friday.

State officials have quarantined the affected properties, which are undergoing “depopulation” procedures – meaning chickens, usually thousands, will be killed in order to prevent the spread of the disease.That’s important, say state officials, public health researchers and farmers’ representatives, as bird flu has the potential to evolve into a harder-to-manage virus that, in the worst case, could lead to another pandemic.

The last time a commercial chicken farm in Maryland had a bird flu outbreak was in November 2023, also in Caroline County, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The Delmarva Chicken Association, a trade association for chicken farmers in Delaware, Virginia and Maryland, said in an email Wednesday, before the latest Maryland case was detected, that whenever H5N1 is detected on a chicken farm, “the chickens on the farm are depopulated to prevent the spread of the disease from farm to farm.”

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Health officials said bird flu is not currently a major public health concern for the most people, either in the food supply or as a potential ailment. But they have been watching it more closely, as there have been cases where it spread from birds to mammals and recently led to the death of a backyard chicken farmer in Louisiana, the first U.S. death of a person from contracting H5N1.

“The risk is still low to everybody. Our food supply in terms of eggs and poultry are safe, because these infected animals never make it into the food supply,” said Andrew Pekosz, a professor and virologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

“They shouldn’t be overly concerned at this point in this time with these infections, but it’s very sobering to public health officials and virologists like myself,” he said.

Pekosz said researchers are monitoring bird flu closely for signs that it could develop into the next pandemic.

“It’s something that we’re trying to prepare for,” Pekosz said. “We know that H5N1 has signatures that would classify it as a virus that could cause a pandemic, were it to infect and start to spread among humans.”

Bird flu has been around for many years, but has been of particular interest within the past two years as more migratory birds have been infected than in previous years, and more cases of bird flu are being detected in mammals

“From a public health perspective, the issue is every time this virus sees a mammal, it has the potential to pick up mutations to make it better able to replicate in mammals, and as it does that, it will also pick up mutations that will probably make it better at infecting humans,” Pekosz said. “That’s when it becomes a real pandemic threat.”

At the moment, however, the threat to the general public is still low. Those most at risk are workers on chicken farms or those who work with backyard flocks. Pekosz said those handling birds or responsible for depopulation should adhere to already established biosecurity measures, which include wearing protective gear and washing hands when exposed to flocks.

“This is one of those things where the general public is relatively safe – it’s an example of how the system worked in terms of detecting these viruses early,” Pekosz said.

The Delmarva Chicken Association said that broiler chickens, those raised for meat production, are routinely tested for bird flu before slaughter.

“It’s also important to note that on Delmarva, every broiler chicken flock is tested for HPAI before harvesting – so there is constant HPAI testing happening even when there is no active HPAI situation in the region,” the association said in a recent email. “That’s done to ensure that only healthy broiler chickens enter the food supply.”

Should bird flu develop into a full-fledged pandemic, Pekosz noted that scientists know much more about how H5N1 works than they did when COVID-19 first arrived a few years back.

“We’re actually much better prepared … We have some sense of how it’s spreading,” he said. Pekosz added that there is currently a H5N1 vaccine under development, and that some antiviral treatments for seasonal influenza also work on H5N1.

“When SARS‑CoV‑2 first emerged, we knew nothing about it — we had to go from zero up to some level of understanding and response,” Pekosz said. “We’re not starting from zero here. We’re fairly well prepared. It’s really more of a matter of how efficiently we can roll out responses to H5N1.”

Maryland Matters is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maryland Matters maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Steve Crane for questions: editor@marylandmatters.org.