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House poised to approve bill creating tools to challenge federal agents in Maryland courts

Democrats combine ‘digital unmasking’ and ‘No Kings’ bills, reject GOP amendments that aim to rein in the ‘broad’ legislation

House Minority Leader Jason C. Buckel (D-Allegany), left, asks Del. Elizabeth Embry (D-Baltimore City) about a bill Wednesday that was heavily amended in committee to allow Marylanders to sue federal agents for civil rights infringements and to identify masked police. (Photo by Danielle J. Brown/Maryland Matters)

The Maryland House advanced a bill Wednesday that would give state officials and state residents new legal tools to fight federal agents in court who violate constitutional rights.

House Democrats beat back a series of Republican attempts to amend the measure, which is actually a combination of two bills restricting immigration enforcement: a “digital unmasking” bill, to help identify masked federal agents, and the “No Kings Act,” which would allow a civil claim against anyone who violated another’s constitutional rights “under color of law.”

The bill is just the latest in a series of bills responding to apparent abuses across the country by federal agents engaged in the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement efforts. Lawmakers have already passed this session, and the governor signed into law, bills prohibiting agreements between federal agencies and local departments allowing local officers to assume some immigration enforcement jobs.

House Bill 351 would give the attorney general authority to use data collected through police surveillance methods, such as cellphone data or GPS location, to identify and gather evidence against a judicial officer if someone brought a complaint of wrongful conduct. It was amended by the House Judiciary Committee to include the language of House Bill 332, the No Kings Act.

Republicans warned that the amended bill is overbroad, and would result in endless lawsuits against federal agents, draining taxpayer funds to defend those agents in court.

“We should be very cautious about turning every dispute and every political disagreement into a lawsuit,” Minority Leader Jason C. Buckel (D-Allegany).

[Sheriffs make plea for restraint, as House, Senate weigh more immigration enforcement limits]

Buckel offered an amendment that would have required an internal or independent investigation to determine that a federal officer had infringed 0n someone’s civil rights before the individual could sue the officer.

“It puts — I wouldn’t say ‘barrier,’ but it creates a framework through which these types of complaints about civil rights violations by federal actors would have to go through before they blossom into a lawsuit against those federal actors,” Buckel said of his amendment.

“The amendment says … let’s make sure that an independent or an internal investigation has concluded that ‘yep, you screwed up, you violated someone’s civil rights,’” he added.

But Del. Elizabeth Embry (D-Baltimore City), who managed the bill on the floor Wednesday, said Buckel’s amendment “effectively neutered the bill.”

“If you allow the agency that may, itself, be subject to this bill to have to first investigate itself that it did something wrong, you can imagine the incentive it would have not to do that,” she said. “To not investigate, to delay the investigation, or to find … guess what? All of their employees acted perfectly.”

She referenced recent shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by immigration officers in Minneapolis during protest against the deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers there. In the immediate aftermath of their deaths, Trump administration officials initially described Good and Pretti as “domestic terrorists.”

“After the killing of Renee Good, DOJ (U.S. Department of Justice) made statements in the press that nothing was wrong and that they wouldn’t investigate the matter,” Embry said. “A few weeks later Alex Pretti was killed…. After enormous public pressure and legal expertise across the entire spectrum saying ‘this is wrong’ … yes, now there may be an investigation.

“Could you imagine if we said you can only bring a civil rights suit if DOJ, if ICE all first agreed that there was a violation?” she asked. “It would undo the point of the bill and I think be contrary to the way we approach civil rights enforcement to this country.”

Other amendments to weaken the bill were voted down by the Democratic majority, which is expected to vote it out of the chamber this week.

The original version of HB 351, dealing with the digital unmasking bill, does not have a Senate version.

HB 332, the “No Kings Act,” sponsored by Del. Lorig Charkoudian (D-Montgomery), got a hearing Feb. 18 by the Judiciary Committee, but has not been voted on separately. A Senate version, Senate Bill 346, was heard Feb. 10 by the Judicial Proceedings Committee, but has not been voted on. The Senate bill is co-sponsored by Sen. William C. Smith Jr. (D-Montgomery) and Sen. Jeff Waldstreicher (D-Montgomery), the committee chair and co-chair, respectively.

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