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Gov. Wes Moore (D) and legislative leaders signed more than 200 bills into law Tuesday, but only one led to an extended hug from the governor for a grieving mother.
Kanaiyah’s Laws named in memory of Kanaiyah Ward, a 16-year-old who died in a Baltimore hotel while in state custody last September from an apparent overdose of diphenhydramine, an over-the-counter allergy medicine. House Bill 980 is one of several measures that aim to prevent a similar tragedy from happening again.
“Kanaiyah should be here today. What happened to her was a tragedy. What happened to Kanaiyah was unacceptable,” Moore said during the bill-signing ceremony in the State House. “Every child in our care deserves the same standard of care that any one of us would expect and hope for our children.”
It was one of more than 200 bills signed Tuesday, the second bill signing ceremony after the 2026 legislative session, with two more scheduled. Bills ranged from immigration protections to administrative improvements for Medicaid waiver recipients with developmental disabilities to a voting rights measure that passed in the literal last minutes of the legislative session.
Sponsors and supporters were on hand for each bill. For Kanaiyah’s Law, that was her grandfather, Michael Ward, and mother, Brooke Ward, who sniffled and held back tears during the governor’s comments on her daughter. After the signing, Moore presented two official signing pens to Brooke and Michael Ward, the first of dozens he would hand over to various bill supporters Tuesday.
After Kanaiyah’s death, the Department of Human Services instituted a new policy prohibiting the placement of foster children in unauthorized settings, like hotels and hospitals, overflow solutions that had been used by the state when it could not immediately find a foster placement. One of the several bipartisan foster care bills signed Tuesday, House Bill 1559, codifies that policy.
Kanaiyah’s Law creates a new State Foster Youth Ombudsman in Human Services to serve as a neutral voice for youth in out-of-home placements. The new ombudsman will also investigate complaints made by foster kids and otherwise ensure that children in the state’s care are in safe and healthy locations.
The bill also creates a Guardian Assistance Program to help relative caregivers to become permanent legal guardians of foster kids that have been placed in their homes by removing financial barriers.
Voting rights, pricing protections, migrant safeguards, more
Among the other bills signed into law yesterday was one to prohibit the practice of changing groceries prices to be from shopper to shopper, based on a person’s personal data, what House Bill 895 refers to as “dynamic pricing.”
“At a time when our people are being squeezed by the cost of everything – especially groceries,” Moore said, “at a time when technology can predict what we need, when we need it, when we’ll pay for it, and when we’ll pay more for it … Maryland is not just pushing back, Maryland is pushing forward.”
The legislation was a priority measure for Moore as well as Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) and House Speaker Joseline Peña-Melnyk (D-Prince George’s and Anne Arundel).
Moore also signed a series of bills focused on boosting protections for immigrants who may interact with federal immigration enforcement. Those bills require hospitals, public schools and other “sensitive” locations to create and adhere to policies on how staff should operate if there are U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on the premises.
Ferguson said that those new laws will help protect Marylanders from some of the more “insidious immigration enforcement activities.”
“Those campaigns have been intentionally built around instilling fear in communities,” he said. “School personnel should not be used as ICE immigration officers, nor should they be able to share information with ICE about a child or parent.”
One bill that almost didn’t pass in time to make it to the governor’s desk for approval was Senate Bill 255, the Voting Rights Act of 2026, given final approval in the House during the last five minutes of the last night of the session, amid a cacophony of opposition from Republicans who believed House rules were were being ignored to rush the bill through.
Ultimately, the bill passed just before the session ended at 11:59 p.m. on April 13, which Peña-Melnyk noted several times during her comments Tuesday. SB 255 allows the attorney general or a resident to a county or local government based on “polarized voting.” It also pushes to ensure county and municipal elections don’t dilute voter strength based on voters’ race, color or sexual orientation, among other characteristics. Because it’s an emergency measure, the bill became law immediately.
“At a time when the foundations of our democracy are being tested across the country, we are strengthening our right to vote,” Peña-Melnyk said. “That little bill that could, I tell you. As I was up there with five minutes, I thought ‘I could not let it die on my watch,’ because there was so much at stake.”
The legislation discussed at the bill signing ceremony only scratched the surface of the hundreds of bills signed into law Tuesday.
Moore also signed legislation that will allow chicken farmers to begin constructing new chicken houses even if the general permit covering the industry has expired. The issue arose this year, when the Maryland Department of the Environment was late to reissue the permit, and any new construction was halted. Late last week, MDE issued the new permit, which will likely resolve the issue once it takes effect on May 8. But the bill will have an impact if the permit ever lapses again, so poultry industry groups still wanted to see it signed.
Also signed was legislation to make it easier for people with developmental disabilities to hang on to their Medicaid waiver coverage if there are administrative errors on their annual reapplication process, an issue the community has been wrestling with for over a year.
In addition, the governor also signed legislation to create a database that will help Marylanders on federal food assistance and Medicaid adhere to upcoming work requirements ushered in by the Trump administration and the Republican-led Congress last year.
“They may not all make the headlines, like the popular bills, but they are so important,” Peña-Melnyk said. “They reflect the kind of steady, thoughtful work that keeps Maryland moving forward through our focus on affordability, accountability and opportunity.”
