Good morning John,

If you only have a few minutes, here's a quick rundown of what I'm asking:

Patrick, our finance director, let me know that we're still a bit short of where we want to be with our fundraising goals. Specifically, we need 72 more people to step up before midnight tonight to keep us on track.

So I'm going to ask you now to be one of those 72 people and make a donation. But then I'm going to take a minute to explain why.

I could not be prouder of what we accomplished in our first legislative session for Maryland.

All 10 of the bills I introduced passed. Those include lots of anti-poverty measures like increasing the minimum wage to $15/hour next January, creating an optional paid service year for high school grads, and increasing access to banking in low- and moderate-income communities.

We also helped increase access to gender-affirming care for transgender Marylanders. And, thanks to overwhelming support, we all will get to vote to enshrine reproductive rights in our state constitution next year – making Maryland a safe haven for abortion care, birth control, and IVF.

But as we've also seen, there will always be those who try to move us backwards. Individuals driven by greed or fear or hate who will hurt others for their own gain. So we cannot rest on our laurels.

I am committed to spending every day making sure that I, Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller, and our state legislature live up to my campaign promise – to leave no one behind.

To do that, I'm still relying on your support to keep our work going.

So, John, if you believe no Marylander should be left behind and are proud of what we did in our first legislative session, will you pitch in your first donation of $5 or more so we can continue the work?

Elevate,

Wes