Reparations · State · MD
Maryland HB1271 — Reparations Board, Reparations Fund, and Endowment Excise Tax Bill Receives Committee Hearing
- Direction
- +2 — major benefit to freedmen
- Force
- 0.10 — introduced or referred
- Status
- Developing
- Date
- 2026-03-11
Why this rating
The bill has not been enacted, voted out of committee, or otherwise advanced beyond a committee hearing as of the material provided; no funding has been appropriated and no board has been seated, so there is no material effect yet. Additionally, the source material describes the intended beneficiaries only as 'persons impacted by historic inequality,' without lineage-specific language identifying descendants of enslaved persons or Freedmen; whether the eventual program would be lineage-specific cannot be confirmed from this text. Per rubric, a bill merely introduced/heard in committee without further action is rated 0.
Summary
HB1271, introduced in the Maryland House of Delegates and first read on February 12, 2026, would establish a Reparations Board tasked with examining reparations payments and making recommendations to the Governor and General Assembly for grants to 'persons impacted by historic inequality.' The bill would also impose an excise tax on nonpublic institutions with endowments of at least $2 billion, with the resulting revenue deposited into a newly created Maryland Reparations Fund to fund those grants.
The bill was referred to the House Government, Labor, and Elections Committee (and Ways and Means). A hearing was scheduled for March 11, 2026 at 1:00 p.m., canceled, and then rescheduled for the same day at 1:35 p.m. The provided material does not indicate that a committee vote, floor vote, or any further advancement has occurred.
Sponsors include Delegates Malcolm Ruff, Gabriel Acevero, Frank Conaway Jr., Ashanti Martinez, Aletheia McCaskill, and Caylin Young, all Maryland House Democrats.
Sources
- Reparations - Board, Fund, and Excise Tax on Endowments - Establishment — bill text · primary · legiscan
Corrections
- 2026-07-20 — Direction corrected 0 -> +2 (creates a reparations board, fund, and endowment: material lineage-directed machinery). Force set to 0.10: introduced, not yet enacted.
Rated under the published impact rubric. Direction records what a measure would do if fully effective; force records how far it has actually travelled. Neither is inferred — both trace to the sources above. Think something here is wrong? Tell us and we will log the correction.