HB 1544 Maryland House of Delegates · 2025 Regular Session

Public Safety - Maryland Law Enforcement Public Service Medal and Key Bridge Collapse Victims Memorial Tribute

HB 1544 establishes the Maryland Law Enforcement Public Service Medal, the state's highest honor for officers demonstrating extraordinary bravery, sacrifice, or impact on public safety during critical incidents. It requires a law enforcement agency to grant a one-grade promotion to medal recipients and creates a review committee to evaluate nominations from agencies, officials, or community groups. The bill also mandates an annual state ceremony honoring six specific workers who died in the 2024 Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse, listing them on a permanent honor roll at the State House. This affects current and future law enforcement officers eligible for the medal and directly memorializes the Key Bridge victims.

Bill status passed 3 of 5 stages cleared

Introduction

Mar 2025

Committee Review

Mar 2025

House of Delegates Passage

Mar 2025

Senate Passage

Governor

Introduced Mar 3, 2025 Last action Mar 25, 2025

Maddy AI version diff · 1 comparison

What changed between versions

First - Public Safety - Maryland Law Enforcement Public Service Medal and Key Bridge Collapse Victims Memorial Tribute → Third - Public Safety - Maryland Law Enforcement Public Service Medal and Key Bridge Collapse Victims Memorial Tribute · 5 edits

MODERATE

This bill was substantially amended to expand the list of law enforcement officers honored in the preamble for their heroic actions during the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse, adding five additional officers to the original four. The amendments also added several new sponsors to the bill, re-referred it to a different committee, and made minor formatting and numbering adjustments throughout the text.

Scope change

The bill's scope was expanded by adding five additional law enforcement officers to the memorial recognition list in the preamble section.

ELIGIBILITY

Added five additional law enforcement officers (Senior Officer William Kinsey, Officer Timothy Baublitz, Officer Garry Kirts, Corporal Jeremy Herbert, and Officer Timothy Baublitz) to the memorial recognition list for the Key Bridge collapse, though some names appear duplicated in the amendment.

TIMELINE

Added committee referral information showing the bill was re-referred to Health and Government Operations on February 27, 2025, with a favorable committee report and adoption by the House.

TECHNICAL

Added multiple new sponsors to the bill including Alston, Bagnall, Chisholm, Cullison, Guzzone, Hill, Hutchinson, S. Johnson, Kaiser, Kerr, Kipke, Lopez, M. Morgan, Reilly, Ross, Szeliga, Taveras, White Holland, Woods, and Woorman.

Made minor formatting changes including adding explanatory notes about capitalization, brackets, underlining, and strike-through conventions used in the bill markup.

Changed the medal award limit from 'not more than four' to 'not more than four five' medals per calendar year, which appears to be a clerical error.

Floor votes · House of Delegates Mar 8, 2025

How they voted

135–0

Passed · 4 other

Total votes 139

Mar 8, 2025

D Democratic100

97 Yea 3

97% Yea

R Republican39

38 Yea 1

97% Yea

Vote distribution

All Yea All Nay Mixed No data

Full legislative history

Actions timeline

Total actions

Key actions

Committee

Mar 17, 2025

Committee

Referred Judicial Proceedings

upper

Mar 17, 2025

Lower · Passed

Third Reading Passed

lower

Mar 15, 2025

Lower · Passed

Favorable with Amendments {

lower

Mar 15, 2025

Lower · Passed

Favorable with Amendments Report by Health and Government Operations

lower

Mar 8, 2025

House Of Delegates · Passed

House of Delegates Vote: pass (135-0-4)

house of delegates

Mar 6, 2025

Committee

Rereferred to Health and Government Operations

lower

Mar 3, 2025

Committee

First Reading House Rules and Executive Nominations

lower

23 primary · 0 co-sponsors