How you can prove “never voted”

“Died in committee” usually hides the question of whether a bill was rejected or simply left alone. In Maryland there is a way to tell.

The General Assembly publishes a committee voting-record PDF only when a committee has actually taken a vote. For the five House-passed bills that stalled in Senate Judicial Proceedings — HB 402, HB 502, HB 1362, HB 1506 and HB 1529 — no voting record exists. For HB 1132 it does: the committee voted, reported the bill favourably, and sent it to the floor.¹

That single asymmetry is the difference between a committee that considered five bills and rejected them, and a committee that did not take them up. The record supports the second reading.

Each of the five did get a hearing: notices went out for 31 March and 2–3 April 2026, in the final fortnight of a session ending 13 April. A hearing in the last two weeks, with no report following, is the standard Maryland shape of a bill that will not move.

The three that got closest

Three bills cleared the committee and died in the chamber, all on 13 April — sine die day.

HB 1132, the resale fee cap, was reported favourably and passed second reading that day. Third reading never came.²

HB 993, the short-term-rental preemption, was reported favourably and passed second reading the same day, with the same result. It would have barred a county or municipality from prohibiting a short-term rental solely because the operator is a lessee or sublessee, while allowing a local cap of one such rental per operator. One scope caution: it regulated local governments, not governing documents — it would not itself have overridden a condominium or HOA rental restriction.³

HB 523, the foreclosure limit, was reported favourably with amendments on 13 April and then lost to a procedural motion: Special Order until later today, adopted, and the session ended. It would have required an order to docket or complaint to foreclose residential property to be filed within 10 years after the last payment, and would have required a secured party foreclosing on acquired debt in default for five or more years before acquisition to produce the documents a debt buyer must produce under Courts and Judicial Proceedings § 5-1203(b). Its intended effective date was 1 June 2026 — immediate, not the usual October. Its Senate cross-file, SB 353, also got a favourable committee report on 13 April and never reached second reading.⁴

Three bills, three favourable Senate committee reports, all on the last day, none enacted. A favourable report issued on sine die is a report with nowhere to go.

What this pattern means for reading Maryland

Two practical conclusions for anyone tracking this jurisdiction.

A House vote is not a forecast. HB 1506 and HB 1362 passed 136–0 and 133–0 and are not law. Unanimity in one Maryland chamber carries no information about the other, and any tracker or summary treating House passage as near-enactment will be wrong repeatedly. At least one widely indexed service recorded HB 402 as passed and awaiting signature; it was not.

Senate Judicial Proceedings is the chokepoint, and its calendar is the constraint. Six of the nine went there. It is the committee that handles real property alongside criminal law, family law and the courts, and community-association bills arriving in late March compete with that docket in the closing fortnight. The bills that became law this year reached the Senate earlier: the insurance act passed the Senate on 20 March and Charles County's training bill on 19 March — both Senate bills, moving in their own chamber first.

That is the actionable read. In Maryland, a community-association proposal's odds improve markedly if it starts in the Senate.

Nothing carries over

Maryland bills die at sine die; there is no carryover. All nine are gone, and refiling starts from a first reading.

The reset is larger than usual this time. The 2027 session convenes 13 January 2027 and is the first of a new four-year term, following the 3 November 2026 general election. Pre-file drafting requests are due 20 November 2026 and pre-file approval 10 December 2026.

So the 2026 dynamic repeats only if the same people return to the same chairs. As of the April 2026 roster, House Economic Matters — where the bill of rights, manager licensing and the election fix died — was chaired by Kriselda Valderrama, and Senate Judicial Proceedings by William C. Smith, Jr.

What to watch next

The pre-file list in late November and December. Which of the nine reappear, and in which chamber, is the single most informative signal available before January — and a Senate-side pre-file on any of them would be a genuine change of strategy rather than a repeat.